


Zero-Sum Game

by Rokesmith



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 67,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4499664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokesmith/pseuds/Rokesmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months after the singularity, a wave of impossible robberies strikes Central City, and there is one obvious suspect: the Flash. But as Barry and his friends unite to track down the real culprit, they find themselves facing a dangerous new enemy in a pursuit that may cost them everything.</p><p>Post season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Dancing in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> The Usual Disclaimer: The Flash and its various characters belong to DC Comics and CW. 
> 
> Author's Note: This story was planned and written before I knew anything about the series second season beyond the fact that there would be one and a few guesses I could make for the 'verse in general based on the first 'Legends of Tomorrow' trailer (and these will probably turn out to be wrong). However, as I have attempted to pick up where the first season left off, it's probably easiest to consider this an alternate second season arc. 
> 
> Language Note: I am British, and while I've used the British-English spellings, I've done my best to make sure the language use itself sounds correct for the American setting. Apologies if I missed anything.

Barry wasn’t sure exactly how Karaoke Night became a thing, but he was almost certain that it was Caitlin’s doing. One Friday she’d quietly interrupted the weekly suit diagnostic and debrief to suggest that they should go out after work and perhaps Iris would like to come along. Cisco and Barry and been so surprised that they’d agreed without even realising, and Iris had accepted before Barry had even finished inviting her. They’d all met at a bar Barry could have sworn he’d been to before, and the next thing he knew, Caitlin and Iris had downed their third shots of the evening and were on stage singing _Wake Me Up Before You Go Go_.

Four weeks of very memorable performances later, the quartet had become familiar faces at the bar, and Barry was happy to be there. Sure, the drinks had no effect on him, and the other three had banned him from singing more than one song per night – not counting duets – because he could actually sing and this was cheating, but despite that it was a great place to be. He knew eight of the regulars by name, chatted to Davey the bartender about the college course he was saving up for, and he never got tired of watching Iris light up as she managed to – just for a moment – forget everything she’d been through and just sing.  

Just what the doctor ordered, for all of them. Doctor Snow, to be precise. It had taken Barry four weeks to realise, but now he knew the woman was an evil genius. In the nicest possible way.

Caitlin was currently on the stage, swaying her way through _Roar_. “I think she’s getting better,” Cisco said.

“Yeah,” Barry agreed. “She’s definitely getting… most of the notes right.”

Iris hit his arm. “You two are mean. She’s having fun. That’s the important thing.” She leaned over. “You know, she won’t tell me how she got to like this so much. Do you know?”

Barry, who had sworn never to speak of the details of his not-date with Caitlin for his own sake as much as hers, shrugged. “No… I don’t. It was probably Ronnie.”

“Yep,” Cisco added, “definitely Ronnie. Couldn’t have been anyone else.”

Iris’ eyes narrowed. Fortunately, before she could remind Barry just how terrible a liar he was, Cisco’s phone pinged.

“What is it?”

Cisco’s eyes focussed. “Armed robbery at the gas station by the bridge. You up for this, man?”

Barry nodded. Cisco slipped him his car keys. He looked at Iris, who was trying very hard to smile.

“Just… go,” she said.

Barry crossed the club floor, gave Caitlin a wave as he reached the exit and pulled out a cigarette. “I’m… um… just going out for a smoke.”

The guy on the door barely looked up. Barry grinned at him anyway. He jogged around the corner to Cisco’s car, thinking for the fiftieth time that there had to be a better place to keep his suit when they went out. He unlocked the trunk, tossed the cigarette aside and grabbed the carry-all. Then he ran.

The Flash went from standing to 200 miles an hour in four seconds. The wind roared in his ears, the ground hummed under his feet and the lightning danced through his veins. He tore out of the South Side, left, right, right again, onto Central Avenue, still accelerating. He passed cars crawling homewards, office workers freed after a week trapped in cubicles, students drowning their studies in beer, friends shouting their joy to the world, lovers dancing in the warm summer air. All moments he was able to share as he passed, just as they all shared a sense of wonder at the rush of wind, the blur of red, and the flash of the lightning.

He barely slowed as the bridge came in sight. He knew the gas station well enough, but he remembered Oliver’s lessons. He could see three people inside: the robbers and their victim. Two big guys who must have been roasting under their ski masks, pointing heavy shotguns at the kid behind the counter. He was giving them the cash just like he was supposed to, but they hadn’t noticed he’d hit the silent alarm.

They started to turn as he came through the door. In slow motion, like they were standing in treacle. He went straight past them to the side entrance. No one there. By now, one of them had got his gun half way around. The other was still aiming at the kid. Barry went for him first. Pulled the shotgun out of his hands, unloaded it and put it on the floor in the corner. Then he did the same with the other guy. He pulled the masks off, stuffed them into their mouths, grabbed a tow rope from one of the shelves and tied them to the doorframe with his best clove hitch.

On the way out, he threw the shotgun shells into the river and passed the first police car as he headed back to the club.

Forty seconds later, he sat back down next to Cisco and asked, “Did I miss anything?”

“Only my curtain call,” Caitlin said.

“And that’s probably enough for you for tonight,” Barry responded.

Cisco looked at his watch. “Whoa, you’re right. It is late. Time always moves so fast here. Maybe we should look into that.”

Caitlin giggled.

Iris pointed very deliberately at Cisco. “Okay, _you_ , get her some water. _You_ , Barry Allen, come sing with me.”

He didn’t even try to argue, and a moment later was on the stage next to her, feeling a thumping rhythm and cheering synths. He only recognised the song when Iris belted out the first line.

“ _I get up in the evening… and I ain’t got nothing to say…_ ”

She knew the words much better than he did. A mix of frustration, anger and pain that seemed to draw on everything churning inside Iris as she thought of the man who’d taught her to sing blue collar rock and roll. He did his best to focus on the lyrics, keep her eyes on him and do a bit of the Cortney Cox shuffle. That made her smile, and they sang and danced together, using someone else’s words for the ones they didn’t know how to say. And for a moment, while the music played, it was enough.

Then the song faded. They took a bow, Cisco and Caitlin cheered, and Barry stepped off the stage with Iris leaning on his arm. It took ten more minutes to persuade her that midnight was not too early to go home, and another five minute debate about whether Cisco was sober enough to drive. Caitlin was just going for her blood test kit when Barry intervened. And so the evening ended with him taking Iris back to Joe’s, then dropping off Caitlin before he drove to Cisco’s, left the car and ran home.

It was strange to have Iris back down the corridor from him. Like college, a job, a coma and a boyfriend had never happened. But they had, and when Barry stopped at the top of the stairs, he heard her sobbing. So he went into her room and put his arm around her as she cried, until the tears stopped finally and she fell asleep against his heart.

Barry hardly noticed himself falling asleep before being jarred out of it by the morning light and the sound of his phone. He did his best to answer it without disturbing Iris too much.

“Joe?”

“Hey, Barry. Sorry to wake you, but I’m at the station.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Yeah. Something’s happened. You gotta come to work, son. Fast.”


	2. An Unlocked Room Mystery

“So we get there and there’s the two guys tied up in the corner with their masks in their mouths and the attendant’s still behind the desk with his jaw on the floor. Turned out he just came here for college. So we untie the perps, pull the gags out, put the cuffs on and read them their rights, and at the end of it, when we ask them if they’ve got anything to say, one of them turns to the other and says ‘You dumb son of a bitch, I told you he was real!’, and the other one says, ‘Well, next time we’ll try Starling instead’. Starling!”

Garfield, the arriving desk sergeant, nearly doubled over laughing. When he could finally speak, he said, “You ought to tell the captain to keep them locked up for their own protection.”

Joe West hadn’t realised how much he’d missed this. Three months upstairs going through cold cases would get him home at five on the dot, but it wasn’t the same as being on the floor. He felt a tingle of guilt; he’d asked for the office posting so he could be there for Iris, and yet standing outside the captain’s office with the prospect of being back on the streets still felt like coming home.

A few minutes later, Captain Singh let him in. He’d lost a little weight. Joe guessed it was harder to hide junk food from your husband than your boyfriend.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “Detective West, I want you to meet Detective Frost from over the bridge.”

Detective Frost could have been Iris’ older cousin. Early thirties, five foot five or six, lightly built. Wearing a sombre suit that nearly matched his own, stud earrings and no other jewellery. Her hair was frizzy, but kept in a carefully organised ponytail.  He watched her look him over before she smiled and held out her hand.

“Crystal.”

“Joe.”

“Detective Frost is here,” Singh explained, “because someone upstairs in Keystone has gotten the idea to have a special task force to look into the… unusual cases that have started coming up in the last two years. KCPD is against it. They want to prove that their cops can handle the weird stuff without any special help. So Detective Frost is going to help look into some of our stranger crimes to prove that all a cop needs is a brain and a badge, even if he’s up against girls who can disappear or guys who light themselves on fire.”

“Do you have something for us, captain?”

Singh nodded. “Jewellery store robbery on Twelfth. Bellows is down there now. When he called in, he asked if you were back on duty yet.”

Joe nodded. He and Eddie had gotten more than their fair share of the weird ones, and the whole department knew it.

He turned towards the door and realised that Frost wasn’t going to follow. “Captain,” she said, “before we go… with all due respect… what about the Flash?”

Singh slumped in his chair. Joe could tell he’d been hoping against hope that Frost wasn’t going to ask that question; the question everyone seemed to be asking the CCPD these days. _What about the Flash?_

“What about him?”

“Well… you and my captain both agree that you want the police solving crimes and arresting criminals, but we’ve heard all kinds of stories about CCPD working with the Flash to wrap up some of these cases. He’s been saving people in this city for nearly a year. He had a fight with Leonard Snart on a public street. Mayor Bellows himself wanted to give him a medal for stopping James Jesse…”

She trailed off. The look on Singh’s face would have shut anyone up.

“Okay,” he said slowly, “some damn strange things have happened in this city lately. The Flash is one of them. He helps. And I’ve only got so many officers to work with, so as long as he keeps helping, I don’t have the time or energy to chase him down. But his fight with Snart wrecked a city block, and I don’t want that happening again. Hell, he brought the goddamn _Arrow_ here once. So the way I see it, it’s my job to get the police of this city good enough that we don’t need the Flash’s help. Not to mention the hundreds of crimes committed in this city every day that he isn’t around for. Now, detective, are you going to help me do that?”

Frost stood to attention. “Yes, captain."

“Good. Now go figure out this robbery. Joe’s called in one of our best CSIs. Kid called Allen. He should meet you there. Eventually.”

* * *

 Frost made it most of the way to the crime scene before she gave in and asked the question. “Have you ever met him?”

“Who?”

“The Flash.”

After all this time, Joe had the response down pat. “I’ve seen him a couple of times,” he said, injecting the answer with just the right amount of weariness for a man tired of saying it.

“You and half the city,” Frost said, sounding disappointed. She signed. “I’m sorry, I’ve just read so much about him and all the other… metahumans… but I still find it hard to believe it’s really happening. Like I’d understand it better if I could see it.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Joe said.

That effectively ended the conversation until they pulled to a stop outside Lakeside Jewellers. It had the familiar front of a single narrow door in between two large display windows. Those windows were empty and there was a ribbon of crime scene tape across the entrance. Officer Andy Bellows was waiting by the door.

“Bellows,” Frost repeated, once they’d been introduced. “Like the mayor?”

“My uncle,” Bellows replied. “Always said I should go into the law like he did. So here I am.”

“What happened?” Joe asked.

Bellows re-read his notes. “The owner, Mr Richard Calhoun, opens up at seven, just like he always does on Saturdays. He walks in, and the alarm goes off. At first, he thinks it’s an accident, then he realises the door to the back room is open. So he goes in and all the cabinets are empty. He says they were completely cleared out. Wedding rings, necklaces, watches, all gone. He’s with Chen putting together a list now.”

“How much?”

“Forty thousand, he says. Maybe more.”

“Why did you ask for Detective West?” Frost asked.

Bellows gave her a worried look, then turned back to Joe. “At first we thought we might have been one of those inside jobs. Guy robs his own store and claims it all back on the insurance. But that doesn’t add up. The alarm, the one that went off, was the one for the inside door not the front. Our guy swears it hasn’t been tampered with, and it sent a signal to the local station just like it was supposed to at seven-oh-two exactly." 

“So what set it off?”

“That’s just what we were asking. If someone managed to get into the back room, into the cabinets and out again during the night then why did the alarm go off in the morning? And if someone managed to get into the back room between the owner opening the door and the alarm going off, they’d have had to have done it…”

“In a flash,” Frost murmured.

She realised what she’d said, opened her mouth again, but Joe cut her off. “Is Allen here?”

“Yeah, he’s inside.”

Joe led the way past the tape. The inside of the store was almost uncomfortably bright, better to catch the facets of the jewellery. The walls were lined with transparent cabinets, all of them a lot stronger and harder to get into than they looked. The last time Joe had been in one of these places, he’d been buying a watch and a necklace for his kids’ graduation, and he remembered the care the salesman had taken making sure everything was properly secured.

The back room was a different matter. This was clearly where the customers with bottomless wallets came to discuss gems you’d need a mortgage for. The cabinets in here were wood-lined, the lighting was dimmer and there was a big desk in the centre of the room flanked by leather chairs.

Barry was on his knees in front of one of the cabinets, carefully tracing fingerprint powder over the open lock. He scrambled to his feet as the detectives came in.

“Hey, Joe.”

“Barry, this is Detective Frost from Keystone.”

“Hi.” Barry held out his hand, realised there was still a brush in it, put the brush down, then remembered he still had gloves on, so he finally settled on a polite bob of his head, which Frost smiled at and returned.

“So what’s it look like?” Joe asked.

Barry stared at his shoes for a moment, then started to talk. “Well, robbing a jewellery store like this is a lot harder than it looks. The only way in or out is through the front, and then that door there, and they’re both alarmed. The walls, the floor and even the ceiling’s been reinforced to stop someone from cutting their way in. No obvious signs of that but we’re going over every square inch to make sure.

“Now, the cabinets. Look at this.” He bent down again. “These may look antique, but this is armoured glass. The wood’s got layers of hardened steel under it and the whole thing’s bolted to the floor. I don’t know how they got them open yet. I’ll have to get them back to the lab and take them apart before I can be sure.” 

“Well… good luck with that. Is there anything you do know yet?”

“Sorry, Joe.”

“Detective West,” Officer Chen called from the doorway. “I’ve got the list of what they took.”

Joe left Barry to his powders and swabs and went back into the main part of the shop. Frost looked over her shoulder as they left.

“He’s cute,” she remarked.

Joe felt his entire body go rigid.

“Kinda reminds me of my little brother.”

Joe relaxed.

Chen handed over a clipboard. “There you are, sir. There’s a summary description, details of the metals and stones that make it up, the value and all the micro-IDs on the gems.” 

Joe skimmed the list. Nothing jumped out at him. He handed it to Frost, who did the same and shrugged.

“Okay, we’ll circulate this to the other stores in Central and Keystone in case someone comes in looking to sell.”

“Try Vice and Organised Crime too,” Frost added. “A lot of people make payoffs in jewels. They’re easier to move than suitcases full of cash.”

Joe, who’d almost forgotten about that report, gave Chen a nod. “Get on that now. We’ll talk to the owner.”

Bellows appeared next to him. “Before you do that, detective, you might want to come look at the CCTV." 

“Sure.”

Bellows ushered them over to a laptop balanced next to the register, being fussed over by one of Barry’s more technically-minded colleagues. “Two cameras,” she said without preamble. “One for the main store, one for the back.”

Joe pointed wordlessly at the bulky fixture against the back wall. The tech girl shook her head.

“That’s fake. Just so everyone knows they’re being watched. The real camera’s there.” She pointed to the big clock on the wall. “Harder to take out if you can’t see it, and a much better angle. Same in the back. And this is what they saw.”

She pressed the button on the laptop and two sets of silent video started playing. His eyes nearly crossed trying to watch both of them at once. The one on the right showed Mr Calhoun opening up his shop, walking in and then reacting to the alarm. The other one showed a dimly lit room where a treasure-trove of gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and opals was waiting patiently in secure cases. Until it suddenly wasn’t.

“Play it again.”

They played it again.

“Again.”

And again. The third time, Joe was certain what he’d seen. So was Frost. He heard her whisper, “Impossible” under her breath, and wished that was true.

Five seconds after the store’s owner had opened the door and walked inside, forty-two thousand dollars of jewellery had vanished from a locked room twenty feet away. In a flash.


	3. Occam’s Razor

Iris, with her father’s eye for detail, had known something was wrong with Barry since he’d come back from his unscheduled overtime on Saturday. Her dad was carrying the same tension, but she’d assumed it was just a case. Some crime he couldn’t talk about mixed with guilt over finally going back on the streets. So she hadn’t asked either of them about it, and as a result was just as shocked as Cisco and Caitlin when Barry appeared in STAR Labs on Monday morning and announced that there was evidence implicating the Flash in a major felony. 

“It is only circumstantial,” he added, doing his best to smile.

“Evidence?” Caitlin repeated. “What evidence?”

“CCTV from the back room of a jewellery store,” Barry explained. “One minute everything’s there and the next minute it’s gone.”

“Cool,” Cisco exclaimed. “New case.” He ignored the stares of the two women. “Come on, you’ve got to admit things have been kinda boring around here.”

There was something off about the way he said it, and Iris took a moment to realise what. Things had been very quiet at Star Labs. That was one of the reasons she’d taken to visiting them; a combination of a desire for company and a determination not to be left out of this part of Barry’s life again. But she’d very quickly realised that she had more in common with the others than just Barry. They were all trying to work around the shadows of people who weren’t there anymore.

Which was why even Caitlin seemed relieved at the prospect of doing something other than thinking and trying not to remember. Even if that did manifest in hooking Barry up to an EEG, EKG and two or three other machines that were known only by acronyms.

“Temperature, heart-rate, blood pressure all normal,” she announced eventually.

“Those are normal?” Iris asked. “They look a little high.”

Caitlin didn’t look up from her notes. “Anyone else presenting those stats would be on the verge of a massive heart attack. But for Barry, that’s normal.”

“Why are we doing this again?” Barry called from the table.

“Because you missed your last two check-ups,” Caitlin responded. “And we don’t want to rule anything out.”

“What, like I really did steal all that stuff?”

“You could have had your personality altered, or been under some kind of psychic compulsion, or…”

Barry slumped in defeat. “Okay, I get it. But it couldn’t have been me. I was in Iris’ bedroom the whole time.”

That made Caitlin look up.

“Asleep. Fully clothed. Iris was also asleep.”

“I had a bad night,” Iris said, almost in a whisper.

Caitlin looked up at her and just nodded. The offer to talk was there, unspoken, as it had been for the past few months. Strangely enough, that was what had made Iris open up to Caitlin above and beyond even Barry. Just by being there, she’d shown Iris that it was possible to survive. Of course, now that Iris was regaining some kind of emotional equilibrium she was starting to realise that in a terrible way, she had it easy. Having the man you loved apparently die, come back, go crazy, explode, leave, come back again, finally marry you and then get whisked away to fight some kind of secret war was a story Iris could barely believe, let alone figure out how anyone would deal with.

A report from the equipment pulled her out of the past. Barry’s brain scan was complete. Caitlin checked the results and compared them to several previous scans – one of which looked very strange – and nodded to herself.

“Okay, Barry. The scan is clear. You don’t seem to have been influenced by any Rainbow Raiders and you’re not being mind-controlled by a gorilla. At the moment.”

“Thanks, Caitlin,” Barry replied. “You’ve made me feel much better.”

They found Cisco set up in his own lab sitting in front of a gigantic television, surrounded by crime scene photos and candy wrappers. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I knew you weren’t brainwashed or crazy.”

“Thanks, Cisco.”

Cisco ushered them into chairs and waved at the TV. “Okay, so this is the footage from the robbery. It’s not great. It’s only about one frame per second and the detail’s not exactly HD, but I guess it gets the job done if you’re just worried about a normal robbery which, personally, I think is dumb.”

“Cisco.”

“Right.”

They watched the recordings a few times. The large screen made the lack of detail and the jerky movements between frames very obvious. Iris kept her eyes on the cabinets, trying to see any sign at all of what had happened. But if there was anything there, she couldn’t see it, just diamonds vanishing in the blink of an eye.

“So what are we supposed to see?” she asked.

Cisco grinned. “That’s just it. You don’t see anything. The stuff’s there and then it’s gone. Now take a look at this.”

He hit a button on the control and the screen changed. The quality of this video was even lower, and it was entirely in black and white. Over the shoulder of a stringy young man, two huge dark shapes aimed what were unmistakably shotguns at the transparent partition keeping him safe. Then, for a few jerky seconds, the men were in the centre of a whirlpool of flickering light and shadow. And then they were tied up in the corner waiting for the police.

“Excellent work, by the way,” Cisco said. “But do you see the difference?”

Iris did. Once upon a time, she’d looked scanned through days of low-quality CCTV footage to catch glimpses of that impossible streak. She kicked herself for not understanding earlier.

“No blurring, right? No visible movement at all. No lightning.”

“Exactly! People know when the Flash has come calling. Whatever did this was a lot more…”

“Subtle?” Caitlin offered. “Not that that’s a good thing of course.”

“You want to hear my theory?” Cisco asked, and took the silence as agreement. “I think we’re dealing with someone invisible. Maybe they can even phase through solid objects. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“But if they could do that, why would they need to set off the door alarm?” Barry asked.

Cisco shrugged. “Okay, so maybe they’re just invisible. The way I figure is they sneak into the back room at the end of the day, pick the locks and then escape with the jewels in the morning.”

“That doesn’t make any sense either,” Caitlin said. “They’d have to spend the entire night locked in that little room with nothing to do once they’d got the cabinets open. They didn’t even take anything till they heard the owner come in.”

“Besides,” Barry added, “the inner door lock had been picked too. I took it apart and you can see the tool marks if you look closely. There’s a photo around… somewhere.” A flash of light and wind scattered most of the pictures, except for the one Barry was now holding out in front of them. “There, you see those little scratches? They’re fresh and they weren’t made by the keys. They were on the door and the cabinets. But the front door’s clean.”

“So,” Iris said, trying to think like her dad, “on Friday night, the owner turns on the alarm and locks up. The next morning, he opens the front door and turns off the first alarm. Then one of two things happens. Either someone invisible is waiting in the back room for this, so they take all the jewels and run through the inside door, setting off the alarm which didn’t happen when they got in. Or, someone comes in behind the owner and picks the locks on the inner door and the cabinets and gets away with everything so quickly that they aren’t seen by the owner or the security camera.”

“I’ve got to admit, that second one does seem easier,” Cisco remarked.

Caitlin sighed. “Only in Central City is a robbery at super-speed an example of Occam’s Razor.”

Iris tapped her nails against the table. “Barry, how fast do you think you could pick a lock?”

“I’ve… got no idea. I never thought about it.”

“Come on. Guess.”

Barry’s eyes went distant. “Well… if I had the right tools and knew what to do and had some time to practice… it can take experienced locksmith a few minutes to pick a lock that way so… a couple of seconds. Five at most.”

“What about the tools you’d need and… I don’t know… instructions?”

He nodded. “Yeah, those are easy enough to get. You can buy them online. I actually met some cops once who do it competitively. They find the hardest locks they can and time themselves to see how long it takes.”

“Cool,” Cisco murmured.

Iris ignored the look of horror that crossed Caitlin’s face, and kept her focus on Barry. “Okay, so could you use those tools wearing your Flash gloves?”

Barry looked thoughtfully at the suit. “Maybe. They might slow me down. There’re not really designed for sensitivity.”

“Yeah, sorry, man,” Cisco said. “I’ve been meaning to look into that.”

“Anyway,” Barry went on, “the suit’s made of some pretty distinctive stuff and I didn’t find any of that around the locks. Just smears from ordinary latex gloves.”

“So how would super-speed effect latex?” Iris asked, and then immediately wished she’d phrased the question differently.

Barry just shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think, guys?”

Cisco and Caitlin exchanged a long look, each willing the other one to answer. It was quite clear that they’d understood the implications, even if Barry hadn’t.

Eventually, it was Cisco who gave in. “Probably… not well,” he said cautiously.

“So, there you go, Barry,” Iris concluded. “Is that enough evidence to clear the Flash?”

“I guess,” Barry replied. “But that just means there’s someone else out there who can move that fast.”

“We don’t know that,” Cisco interrupted.

“But we’ve just established it’s the most likely explanation,” Caitlin responded.

“Guys, it can’t be him,” Barry said firmly. “Wells died. He… more than died. We all saw it. And anyway, if it was him, why would he rob a jewellery store?”

Cisco slowly relaxed. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense. So someone else, then?”

“Why not? We don’t know what happened to Wells to make him fast. If it can happen to me, and to him, then it can happen to someone else.”

“So what do we do?” Iris asked.

Barry opened his mouth, then closed it. Cisco tapped a wrapped lollipop against his lips. They looked at each other, at Iris, at Barry.

Then Caitlin cleared her throat and failed to sound casual as she asked, “What would Doctor Wells say?”

The silence in the room was almost painful. Barry and Cisco stared at Caitlin, looking surprised and hurt, almost betrayed. In return, Caitlin straightened up and met their eyes with a cool, flat expression. The argument that followed was entirely non-verbal. Iris could only guess what they were thinking. All those times Wells had helped them. All the times he’d done it for his own reasons. But, even looking back, all the times where his motives might have passed for pure.

Iris hardly dared breathe, until Barry finally spoke. “He’d probably say we’ve got a good theory, but it is just a theory and not to rush in until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Caitlin’s expression had softened, there was nothing but kindness and concern in her voice now. “You said that Joe and his new partner were looking for witnesses.”

Barry nodded. “Yeah, they’re trying to find the jewels too. I need to get back to the lab and go over the physical evidence again. Cisco, can you run an analysis of the video? Frame by frame. Send it to Felicity if she can help.”

“Relax, man, I got it.” Cisco tried to look like Barry had offended his professional honour, then gave up and smiled. “Anything weird shows up, you’ll know.”

“I’ll ask around,” Iris said firmly. “In case there have been any other robberies like this in other cities. I’ll email you all with what I find.”

“Good idea,” Barry said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Iris told him. “I’m the new girl.”

She’d learned that quickly at the paper. You might be part of the team now, but no one gives the new girl a job. She has to ask for it. It’s the first test of a good reporter. And, it seemed, a good superhero.


	4. Central City Cops

By her third day on the impossible jewellery store case, Crystal Frost was no closer to figuring out how the thief had gotten in and out without being seen. Or what had happened to the stolen goods. She was starting to feel the temptation to write it off as magic, hand it over to someone else and go looking for an impossible crime that she could actually explain.

It was a familiar feeling, one she had a lot of practice at ignoring. So instead she took a gamble and called an old partner in Keystone. He said he’d ask around. The next day, he called back.

She ambushed Joe as soon as he was back from lunch. “I think I’ve got a lead.”

“On the thief or the jewels?”

“The jewels. Maybe. I called in a favour. There’s a guy in Keystone called Peter Sims. He runs an antique bookstore uptown and moonlights as a fence. He’s been arrested for receiving stolen goods a few times, but he’s got a good lawyer and you know how hard it is to make those charges stick. It helps that he’s a police informant too.”

Joe nodded. “Insurance. So why him?”

“Apparently if you work in the antique book business, you need to have a lot of meetings. Even more when you’re fence. The file says Sims has most of his lunches with rich customers, and he’s usually seeing two or three people every day. Except this week. Every day this week, he’s come straight from home to the store, ate lunch in his office and gone straight home.”

“Sounds like something’s bothering him,” Joe agreed. “What do you think? He’s your guy.”

“I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Okay. I’ll go clear it with the captain.”

Half an hour later, they were crossing the bridge into Keystone. The two cities weren’t just twins, they were almost mirrors of each other. The docks on the lake gave way to heavy industrial areas, which turned into commerce and traffic as the car crawled north. It took them nearly an hour to reach the uptown market quarter where Sims had his shop amongst high-end clothes stores, perfume boutiques and, inevitably, jewellers.

The shop certainly had the right look and smell, and a weight to the air that always made Crystal think of old books. The fixtures could have been bought wholesale from a British TV show, except a closer look showed they were mostly fake. While she examined at them, Joe checked out the books themselves, and he seemed to have a much better idea than she did what was worth looking at. 

When the only customer had left them alone with the slim, serious woman behind the desk. Crystal took the lead and held out her badge. The other woman barely reacted.

“Detectives Frost and West. Is your boss in?”

The clerk picked up the phone by the register. “Peter… there are two police officers here. Detectives. Sure.”

There was a small stairway behind the ‘Staff Only’ door. One of the doors at the top was marked ‘Private’. The clerk knocked and then showed them into an office with the same old-fashioned style as the shop itself, but up here the lamps were real antiques and the desk was sturdy enough for Buckingham Palace.

The money Sims hadn’t spent on his office had obviously gone into the suit and tie he was wearing in spite of the late summer heat. His thin face was a little flushed, and there was a big glass of water on the desk next to his ultra-slim laptop. Crystal wondered who he was trying to impress, or if the habit was too strong.

“How can I help you, detectives?” he asked in an east coast accent with a lot of money behind it.

Crystal sat down. Joe stayed standing.

“There was a robbery in Central City this weekend,” she began. “Nearly fifty thousand dollars of jewellery was taken. We were wondering if you’ve heard anything about it.”

“I might have read about it somewhere,” Sims replied.

“What about something that wasn’t in the newspapers?” Joe asked.

“You realise why we’re here, don’t you?” Crystal said. “You’ve been questioned three times about stolen goods in the last year. Two of those involved jewellery.”

“I had no idea those items were stolen,” Sims responded. “I was never charged.”

Crystal tried a different tactic. “All we’re asking is if you know anything. You’ve helped us before. We’re after whoever committed the robbery. Nobody else.”

She watched him thinking over the implied offer. He relaxed enough to have a drink of his water. And she also saw the familiar assumed superiority that affected this kind of amateur criminal when they wanted to help the police for no other reason than to show how important they were. It’s no fun knowing a secret if you can’t tell anyone.

“I… might know something,” he said.

Crystal made a show of paying extra close attention. “Go on.”

“On Monday morning, someone slipped an envelope into the mailbox for me. It was full of pictures of necklaces, rings and watches. There was a phone number, a time and what I assumed was an asking price. Thirty thousand dollars.”

“So what did you do?”

“I’d read about the robbery in the newspaper. I guessed this was probably the same person trying to sell their loot. So I called the number at the time I was given and refused.”

“Do you still have the number, or the pictures?”

“No. I burned them. And the number must have been for a payphone.”

“What about the caller?”

“It was a man, but that’s all I can say. He might have been distorting his voice. I’m not sure. He got angry when I refused. He said I’d regret not taking his offer. But he didn’t frighten me, and I… gave him the name of someone else I thought would be interested.”

“Who?”

“Andre Vasin.”

“You’ve got quite a contact list there, Mr Sims,” Joe remarked.

Sims shrugged. “It’s just a name I know. I’ve learned a lot of names over the years.”

“Is there anything else you want to add?” Crystal asked.

“Not without my lawyer,” Sims responded, his confidence back. “Should I call him?”

Crystal shook her head. “No, Mr Sims. I’ll leave my card if you think of anything.”

* * *

 Crystal called ahead while Joe drove them back to Central. The files they’d requested were waiting when they arrived. An hour of reading, another hour of checking and rechecking and they were able to present a plan of attack to Captain Singh.

“Andre Vasin’s a middle man for the Russian mob,” Crystal explained. “He moves stolen goods out of the city and in exchange for a percentage. He also does more straightforward buying. We know he’s taken diamonds before.

“Most of what Vasin does goes on by the river. He buys, rents and re-sells warehouses near the docks. A dozen in the last year. He keeps his other interests in the empty ones. He’s also got a couple of small boats that his tax returns say are for moving machinery.”

Singh nodded but didn’t say anything. Crystal had been worried he would ask what the lake patrols were doing about this. The answer, she was very aware, was almost nothing. Both police departments had been arguing that they had sole jurisdiction over the lake for years, and the competition meant that neither side could accomplish anything. The worst part was that the criminals of both cities knew this and took advantage whenever they could.

Joe took up the story from the intelligence reports. “This is from Organized Crime. A couple of snitches told them that the mob has found a way to get rid of the markings on commercial gems without damaging the stones. Vasin uses his boats to get them to the coast and then north to a guy based in Starling. Then, if they want, they can ship them back here and we’d never prove they were stolen.”

“Do we have any proof of that?” Singh asked.

“No. Just reports. No names.”

“But if we could catch him ready to take this shipment out of the city, we might be able to get him to give up some of it.”

“Maybe, captain,” Crystal replied, not willing to place too much hope in the good will of the mob. “At least we can ask who sold him the jewels.”

“Okay,” Singh said. “He won’t co-operate unless we catch him holding the goods. Do you know where they’ll be?”

“One of the warehouses that isn’t being rebuilt or rented to someone else. The only one with people coming and going in the last two weeks is on Delaware Avenue.”

Singh picked up the phone. “I’ll get the warrant. You get the SWAT team.”

* * *

 Andre Vasin’s warehouse on Delaware had a ‘For Rent’ sign fastened to the chain-linked fence outside. Crystal found herself reading the contact number over and over as they waited for the word that the SWAT team was in place. Her body-armour was uncomfortably tight, as always. Her palms, wrapped around the Beretta’s grip, were sweating, but they weren’t shaking. At her side, Joe West could have been carved out of stone, and she wondered how many times you had to do this before you stopped feeling the fear.

At last, the radio buzzed and the team crept forward. In the fading evening light, she could just make out the other group approaching from the other end of the warehouse. They reached the staff door beside the main vehicle entrance and paused. One of the SWAT guys took aim at the lock with his shotgun, and the squad leader counted off the seconds.

Two bangs, blended into a single roar and the team crashed into the warehouse, sweeping out in arcs, shouting as loudly as they could. Crystal went with them, staying behind the special unit, watching the swing of their carbines.

Inside was the kind of mess that tactical teams only saw in nightmares and test scenarios. Three shipping containers left like they’d been dropped there, making it impossible to see the entire interior. There were half a dozen smaller containers in between them in what could almost have been a pattern. It was well lit, but the lights were low down, so it took her a moment to realise that there was a gantry running across the walls just beneath the titled roof. She couldn’t see any sign of a ladder connected to it.

There was a burst of shouting from up ahead, just as her team cleared the containers into the open part of the interior. Four guys were standing around an old shipping crate which had been repurposed as a desk. There were rusty metal filing cabinets wedged into the corner behind them, balanced by a couple of portable heaters. Working out of a warehouse had downsides she’d never considered.

One of the guys had his hands resting on the table. “Raise them!” she barked. “Keep them up!”

“Where’s Andre Vasin?” Joe demanded. “Where’s your boss?”

Nobody answered him. Crystal kept them covered while Joe gestured to the SWAT; he’d seen the way to the upper level.

Then, over the heads of the men, she saw someone move on the gantry. “Hey!” she shouted. “CCPD! Stay where you are!”

She raised her pistol, trying to see the shape past the lights, and then the warehouse exploded into noise and motion. The figure above her shifted and disappeared into a muzzle flash. She ducked, pressed against the crate as bullets shrieked against the floor behind her. She tried to focus, and part of her mind that was still and calm thought it heard four guns from three different directions. Then they were nearly drowned out by louder bursts as the SWAT carbines replied, the officers holding the line and finding cover.

A second passed, filled with incomprehensible yells as the Russians bolted for safety. One of the SWATs tried to stop them, and Crystal clearly saw one of the men on the gantry take aim. Her gun came up on its own, but the officer was already falling as she fired and the shape staggered.

She hit the radio. “Officer down! Officer down!”

“We have to move!” Joe shouted. “Go for the pillars!”

He was right. The support pillars were the only things in the warehouse guaranteed to stop a bullet. Crystal swept her eyes around, and then nodded. He did the same, fired two shots upwards and then gave her the nod and they both ran.

The nearest pillar couldn’t have been more than twenty yards away, even an instant out of cover felt like too long. Half way, she and Joe grabbed the shoulders of the fallen SWAT’s jacket and heaved. She pulled as hard as she could, trying to keep her pistol up as she did so, willing herself to keep her eyes open as another volley exploded to her right.

It came again, closer, and she tried to aim or shout so that at least they wouldn’t hit Joe too.

And then she saw the lightning.

It burst through the room, impossibly bright and astonishingly beautiful, rushing straight past her and chasing a red blur that swept over the nearest Russian – who wasn’t even looking her way – and left him in a heap on the ground. It vanished, faster than she could follow, around the edge of the container, and one of the guns suddenly went silent.

Somewhere above her, someone yelled, “It’s him! It’s him!”

The incoming fire shifted from bursts to a continuous scream that focussed on the red light. It danced across the room, moving between blinks as the ricochets exploded around it.

Then there was another sound, a blast that crashed against Crystal’s strained eardrums as something tore a huge scar in the warehouse wall. She looked up and saw a man lying on the gantry, wrapped around the long body of a sniper rifle designed to hunt tanks. The sniper saw her, and the barrel swung.  

She screamed a warning to Joe, and then the lightning swallowed them. For a split-second, she was floating, utterly peaceful as the world blurred around her. The pillar exploded, but it was forty yards away, and she, Joe and the SWAT were pressed against the other one. The light zig-zagged off, and another gun fell silent. Then a third.

The streak reached the staircase and flickered up it. The sniper scrambled to his feet, looked to the fire door behind him, then pointed the weapon down the narrow gantry.

Crystal was back on her feet, with Joe beside her, both of them yelling, “Freeze!”

The sniper hesitated, and the lightning seized him. He vanished, and then thudded heavily onto the ground against the damaged crate. The portable cannon settled at the foot of the SWAT sergeant. Then the light seemed to fill the entire warehouse as one Russian after another appeared, disarmed and stunned, in the circle of police officers. They counted eight, including Andre Vasin.

Crystal had time for two shaky breaths, realising that it was over, before the Flash stopped in front of her. She’d heard stories, even seen pictures, but he was different up close. The red was brighter than she’d imagined. She could just see the lightning bolt symbol on his chest, and that was the only detail she could make out. His whole body, from head to toe, shimmered like a mirage.

“Thank you, detective,” he said.

His voice was just as impossible as the rest of him. But despite the distortion, it was soft and kind.

“You’re welcome,” she managed to reply.

The blurred face might have smiled. There was a flicker of motion before the Flash stabilised again. He gestured to the wounded SWAT officers. “Their jackets stopped the bullets, but they’ll need medical attention.” Another wave, this one in the direction of the Russians. “Two flesh wounds, one to the arm and one to the leg. The third also had a bullet stopped by body armour.”

“The ambulance is on its way,” Joe said, confirming the Flash’s analysis.

“Three minutes,” the strange voice said.

Then the lightning flashed and he was gone.

* * *

It was nearly midnight before Crystal got home. Vasin was in custody, and some poor ADA was probably going to spend half the night putting together a list of charges. She wondered, in a distant sort of way, why they’d been so stupid as to open fire on the police. Then her hands started shaking, and they didn’t stop for half the night.

She reached the precinct at eight, not the first cop to come to work with barely an hour’s sleep. Nobody said anything until she reached Joe, who had the same strain in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yesterday… that was the first time I’ve ever shot at anybody.”

Joe nodded. “You did good, Crystal. You know the number to call if you need to talk?”

“Yeah.”

They spent the next hour drafting their report. Despite the story it told, compiling the events was pleasantly familiar. The only uncertain moment was when she asked what they were going to say about the Flash. Joe smiled and told her not to leave anything out, even if it was impossible.

Then, at twenty past nine, the strained, sleep-deprived ADA arrived at their desk. “Andre Vasin wants to talk to you.”

“Really?” Joe asked. “Why?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say the mob has cut him loose. He’s made too much of a mess this time. So he wants to make a deal. As many deals as possible. He’s willing to talk about the jewellery.”

They were taken to the interrogation room, where Vasin was waiting. The red-faced man looked more like he’d just come back from a long party than a night in the cells. His attorney sat still and straight next to him. Judging by the quality of the man’s suit, Crystal agreed with the ADA’s conclusion that Vasin’s connections had abandoned him.

This time, Joe took the lead. He calmly spread photographs of the items seized in the raid across the desk, including the collection of jewellery.

“You said you wanted to talk about these?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Vasin said.

“Why should I believe you?” Joe asked. “We found this in your warehouse, with you on the premises, along with all these things and six thousand dollars in cash. You and your boys put two good cops in the hospital. You had a military-grade fifty calibre sniper rifle which you fired at me and my partner. After all that, what’s admitting to grand theft going to hurt?”

“My client has already discussed the firearms charges with the ADA,” the attorney put in. “He didn’t hold or fire a weapon yesterday.”

Vasin nodded. “I’m sorry about the Big Boy. That was Alexi. He got carried away. The rifle was a precaution. It wasn’t for the cops.”

“Who was it for, then?”

“The Flash.”

Joe went stiff in the chair. His fists clenched on the table and for a terrible moment Crystal thought he was going to jump over it. Then he slumped, staring at his hands. She could tell he was picturing the same thing she was: a half-inch wide brass bullet fired from a mile away, travelling at more than 3,000 feet per second, easily outrunning its own sound-waves and capable of ripping through buildings. Even the fastest man alive couldn’t survive something like that.

The silence stretched, and Vasin cocked his head thoughtfully, staring at Joe. Crystal cleared her throat, bringing everyone back into the room.

“Did you think you’d have to… deal with the Flash?” she asked.

Vasin shrugged. “As I said, a precaution. But that was before we bought the jewels.”

“Who did you buy them from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then tell us what you do know.”

The Russian shrugged again. “On Tuesday morning, I was called by a man who’d been… referred to me. He said he had jewels to sell. I said I was interested. The next day, I picked up the photos and a small sample.”

“From where?”

“The mailbox of an acquaintance. I called the number again. It was a payphone. We agreed on thirty thousand dollars. I did not go myself, I sent Alexi. He came back with the jewellery, but he said the meeting was… strange. He took the money in a suitcase and went to the train station. Then, the man called his cell phone. He told him to open the suitcase and he said to thank me. When Alexi looked in the case, the money was gone, and the jewels were inside. Like… magic.”

Crystal kept her face neutral. “And that’s the whole story?”

“It is. Ask Alexi.”

She looked over at Joe. He seemed to have recovered. She was going to let him ask his questions when there was a knock on the door. It was Captain Singh.

“Well?” he asked, once the interview was suspended. “Did he give you a name?”

“He says he doesn’t know,” Crystal answered.

Singh’s expression clouded. “That’s just great. There’s been another robbery. This time they hit a bank.” 


	5. Judas' Kiss

Cisco Ramon would have been lying if he’d said he’d never thought about robbing a bank. Not that he wanted to steal other people’s money, but a bank was like the perfect convergence of electronic and mechanical security, and as an engineer, he loved a challenge. Or maybe it was just because, when they were kids, Dante always insisted on being the good, heroic cop and Cisco had to be the evil bank robber ultimately proving that the Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit.

Of course, he didn’t think about it so much these days. He got enough challenges building and maintaining toys for superheroes. And then he’d met some actual bank robbers, and they were a lot less cool in real life than the ones played by Robert De Niro and Johnny Depp.

One way or the other, if he had wanted to put theory into practice, he wouldn’t have picked this place. The bank on the corner of 45th and Lane had gone out of its way to avoid looking like a tempting target. Barry had mentioned they’d done a serious overhaul during the days when the Mardons were knocking over anything in Central City bigger than a piggy bank. The old front had been stripped out and replaced with a single long panel of frosted glass. The inside was open, white and airy, with that and the row of counters facing the street making Cisco think of an airport departure lounge.

At the moment, the only people in there were cops. The sidewalk outside had been taped off, with customers giving statements at one end and employees at the other. The traffic down Lane Avenue had bottlenecked as people slowed down to take a look.

Cisco proudly waved an ID at the cop at the corner of the tape. “Hi, yeah. Cisco Ramon. I’m a very important consultant with the CCPD crime lab.”

The cop didn’t look impressed. He didn’t take his eyes off Cisco as he spoke into his radio. A moment later, Barry appeared in full-on CSI gear.

“That actually looks pretty cool,” Cisco told him.

“Great,” Barry said, shoving a wrapped bundle into his arms. “Here’s yours.”

Once changed, Barry led Cisco into the bank. They passed the service counters and a staircase up to some sort of lounge for customers who wanted to talk about mortgages, loans or any of that other adult money stuff, and went around a corner. This part of the bank was invisible from the street, but just as well lit as the rest of it. It was arranged entirely so customers could queue for the six ATMs, three built into each of the side walls. And each of those ATMs was on standby and half open. 

“No way,” Cisco whispered.

He didn’t even notice Joe appearing at his shoulder. “Cisco.”

“Hey, Joe.” Cisco pointed at the machines. “This seriously, actually happened?”

“Yeah. Just like the jewellery store. The first people came in to use the machines ten minutes after the bank opened. All the ATMs had the ‘Not in Use’ message flashing, so they called the staff over. They called the manager, and she ran a couple of checks before she found the problem: they were all empty.”

“How much?” Cisco asked.

“According to the bank’s computer… fifty-one thousand, two hundred and eighty dollars.”

Cisco said something very rude in Spanish.

“Yeah… probably,” Barry said.

“We need you to figure out how this was done,” Joe told him. “And fast.”

Cisco nodded. “Okay. Just one question. Not that I’m not happy to be here, but why me? Don’t the police have like a whole department for this or something?”

“Kinda,” Barry answered. “But you have to admit, making that much money disappear from these machines without leaving any trace or showing up on the CCTV is beyond them.”

“Right. Yeah. So where do we start?”

Barry led him over to one of the open machines and they knelt down next to it. Cisco wondered why he’d never been tempted to look up the details of an ATM before. He just treated it like a magic box that gave you money, the same as everyone else. One of those things that was so much part of everyone’s lives that it had slipped beneath notice. Too normal to be interesting.

Barry repeated the ATM 101 he’d been given by the bank manager. “These aren’t quite as resistant to being broken into as the ones out in the street, but they’ve all actually got canisters of flammable gas which are supposed to burn the money if you try to force them open. Obviously that didn’t go off. There’s a catch on the side you need a special key to open. You need another key to access the keypad control, the screen and the CPU, but that doesn’t look like it’s been touched. To get into the vault, the part with the money, you need to put in your ID card and a six digit code that’s different for each machine and gets changed once a month.”

“So they definitely just opened the machines and took the money out?” Cisco asked.

“That’s what it looks like. Can you figure out how they did it?”

Despite himself, Cisco smiled. “Dude, are you really asking me to plan a bank robbery?”

Barry laughed. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

* * *

Cisco spent the rest of the day pouring over the technical specifications of the ATMs that Barry had given him. The bank had even offered to supply him with an actual machine once they got clearance from head office. But Cisco didn’t think that was necessary; by the afternoon he’d got a pretty good model put together, half in the computer and half in his head.

He was surprised to see Caitlin come in with some take-out, and then realised it had just past six. The food smelled great. He was fairly certain he’d eaten lunch, but the specifics eluded him.

“I know this is technically police work,” Caitlin said, “but you are allowed to stop and go home at the end of the day. Even Barry does that.”

“I’m almost done,” he replied. “Thanks for the food.”

She dropped the bag on his desk. “It’s the only way I can make sure you eat something that isn’t just made of processed sugar.”

“Candy doesn’t slow me down,” Cisco responded, with an unwarranted irritation that just proved he was getting really hungry.

Caitlin sighed. “So talk me through what you’ve found out, and you can eat while you’re doing that.”

“Okay.”

Before he started to talk, Cisco took a bite of the burrito she’d brought. It tasted amazing. Before he knew it, he’d finished the whole thing and was slurping down a soda too. After all this time, Caitlin could buy him exactly what he was craving, nine times out of ten, without even asking.

“Okay,” he said, once she’d pointed out the sour cream on the corner of his mouth, “you can’t force one of these babies open without the cash inside getting burned, so they had to crack the electronic lock, which isn’t actually that difficult. There’s a USB port for updates that you can access once you’ve got the case open. Then you just have to hack it.”

“Right. How do you do that?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I emailed Felicity for a consult but she hasn’t replied yet. But the important thing is that you get into the keypad controls from the inside and trick it into opening. The easiest way would probably be to override the auto-lockout and brute-force the combination.”

Her eyes had glazed over, the same way he knew his did when she was talking about Barry’s serum antigen levels.

“Brute force is the simplest way to break a code or a combination,” he explained. “You just run through every single possible option one at a time until you get the right one. Trouble is, most systems will lock you out if you get it wrong too many times, like your PIN, so you have to override that.”

“How long would all this take?”

Cisco proudly tapped his computer. “With one of these, and right program, probably less than a minute.”

“Okay… that’s a little scary.”

“Not really. The bank’s not going to let anyone just sit down in front of their ATM with a laptop to run daylight-robbery.exe. If you wanted to try that you’d have to break into the bank in the middle of the night, and that’s really hard.”

“It’s just like the jewellery store,” Caitlin murmured. “It’s possible, but it isn’t.”

Cisco sighed. “Yeah. There’s not enough time.”

He closed his eyes, trying to think his way around the cut-throat edge of Occam’s Razor. He opened them again when his computer pinged.  

“What is that?” Caitlin asked.

Cisco blinked at the status report and grinned. He’d gotten so tied up in thinking like a bank robber, he’d forgotten the analysis of the bank’s CCTV footage he’d started. The quality was a lot better than the images they’d got from the last robbery, it was in colour, and ran at twice the frame rate. He pulled one of the unprocessed images up onto the big screen.

“Another idea I had. Take a look at that, Caitlin. Do you see it?”

She leaned closer to the screen and squinted. Cisco didn’t blame her for having trouble. He’d been staring at the images on a loop, like the world’s most boring interior design slide show, all through his lunch break. He’d known there had to be something there; no engineer believed you could take an action and leave no trace whatsoever.

“I… think so,” Caitlin said eventually, peering past his finger. “It looks… weird. Distorted. But that might just be a problem with the lens.”

“See, that’s what I thought. Except it’s not in this frame at all.” He cycled around to show a pristine image with no trace of the faint blurring. “And in this one it’s on the other side of the room. There.”

“So you ran it through the enhancement program?”

“Yeah. Pixel by pixel. And what I got was…”

He hit a button, and his smile died. There was something else in the images, something so faint and confusing that the camera recording them had almost ignored it. A translucent smear across the opposite wall, becoming lumpier and slightly more opaque in front of each machine. And the smear was unmistakably red.

“How is that possible?” Caitlin breathed.

“I don’t know.” Cisco hit the keyboard to bring up another image. “I don’t… no.”

All three of the frames where he’d found distortions had that same reddish blur. There were gaps, but it unmistakably flowed into the bank, past the ATMs as they’d emptied, and out again.

“We have to tell Barry about this.”

Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Cisco knew what would happen. Speak of the devil wasn’t a great way of thinking about one of the nicest guys you knew, but it certainly hit home sometimes. There was a flicker of light and a rush of wind in the doorway, and there he was.

“Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

Neither of them spoke. Cisco tried to edge to his left and stay between Barry and the flat-screen. He thought he was doing well when Caitlin said, “Cisco found something on the surveillance footage.”

“That’s great. I was hoping you would. I guess there’s a lot more detail in a bank than a jewellery store. What did you find?”

Cisco didn’t know how to say it, so he just stepped aside. Barry looked from the screen, to him, to Caitlin and back again. He walked slowly forward, his expression totally empty, and stood completely still in front of the images. Ten seconds passed, and Cisco wondered how long that was inside Barry’s hyper-speed brain.

Finally, he said what Cisco knew he would say and had been desperately wishing he wouldn’t: “We have to take this to the police.”

“No way, man!” Cisco responded. “We can’t. This makes it look like you did it.”

“I know that.”

“So why give it to them?”

Barry’s face twisted. “Because we have to.”

“No.” Cisco shook his head, trying not to look at the pain in his friend’s eyes. “No way. We don’t have to. We’re not cops.”

“But _I am_ ,” Barry said.

Cisco had no idea what to say to that. In the silence that followed, Barry dropped onto a stool and tried to compose himself.

“This isn’t about the Flash,” he said eventually. “This is about me. I made a promise. To gather the evidence, all of it, no matter what.”

Caitlin put her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t speak.

“Do you know why my dad’s in prison?” Barry went on. “It’s because when the police came to our house that night, they didn’t collect all the evidence. They were so sure it had to be him that they didn’t bother with anything that said it wasn’t. They missed the blood on the wall. They wouldn’t listen to me. Even if they didn’t believe I’d seen a man made of lightning, they might have believed that there was someone else in the house…”

There were almost tears in his eyes. There were almost tears in Cisco’s.

“That’s why I promised myself I’d never make that mistake. I’d never conceal evidence, and I’d never hold it back just because it didn’t fit with what I thought or what the police thought. And I won’t do it now. I can’t. No matter what it means for me. Or for the Flash.”

Cisco looked up at Caitlin, silently begging for her help. If there was a single flaw in Barry’s logic, he knew she’d find it.

“Cisco…” she said, and that was enough.

“Okay, man,” he muttered. “We’ll give it to your boss. But I’m doing it myself. All the evidence, like you said. Including all the reasons it couldn’t possibly be the Flash.”

“Thank you,” Barry said. “But you don’t have to. I can do it.”

“No way.” Cisco found it within himself to grin. “You think I’m letting you take the credit for all my hard work? Besides, worst comes to the worst, I’ll cause a distraction, and you run.”

* * *

This was one of those days where being a good guy sucked. Even though it was the right thing to do, it still made Cisco feel sick to do it. He had to stand up in front of Captain Singh, Joe and Joe’s new partner and give evidence like Barry was in the dock rather than the chair to his left. The worst part was how hard he had to try not to show it, because he wasn’t supposed to know the Flash as anything but an urban legend who happened to be real.

Before the meeting started, Joe had taken him aside and told him that CCPD had their own tech team looking at the CCTV, and they would have found the red streaks themselves, it just would have taken longer. Cisco didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse.

Captain Singh didn’t speak the whole way through the presentation. Neither did Joe. Detective Frost asked one question, about whether the streaks had shown up on the other footage. Cisco told her, truthfully, that they’d be harder to see, but he was running a more aggressive version of the same enhancement program to find out.

“Thank you, Mr Ramon,” Captain Singh said at the end. “I appreciate STAR Labs' help with this case.”

“We’re always glad to do our bit,” he replied, wondering if he’d get his pieces of silver now or later.

Singh went quiet again, staring at the empty screen. Cisco stayed on his feet. To hell with it. If Barry was going down, he wouldn’t go down alone.

“Okay, I know how this looks,” he said quickly, “but that can’t be the Flash. He wouldn’t do it. There has to be something else or someone else behind this.”

“ _Thank you_ , Mr Ramon.”

Cisco sat down. He could see Joe’s disapproval, but didn’t care. He couldn’t look at Barry. If he did, he knew he might as well shout his secret to the whole world.

“Joe…” Singh began, and then there was a knock on the door. “What?”

The desk sergeant stuck his head into the room. “Sorry, captain. Joe, Iris is here and…”

Iris herself pushed past him. Cisco felt Barry tense up, even though she hardly looked at him. Joe somehow managed to keep himself in his chair.

“Captain Singh, I’m really sorry, but I need to speak to you. It’s important.”

“What is it, Ms West?” Captain Singh asked, putting enough emphasis on her title that even Cisco understood that right now, her father’s job was no safety net.

“Someone at the city desk said that there’s evidence that the Flash might have been involved in two robberies? I’ve come to tell you that’s impossible.”

“I hope you have a reason for that,” Singh said.

“I do.” Iris glanced around the room, giving an incompressible look to Barry and an apologetic one to Joe. “On Saturday morning, when the jewellery store was being robbed… the Flash was with me.”

“Iris!” Joe exclaimed.

Singh held up a hand, and Joe forced himself back into his chair. “Iris… do you have a… personal relationship with the Flash?”

They all heard the real question. Cisco managed a glance at the others. Detective Frost was watching the scene wide-eyed. Joe’s face was getting redder and redder. Barry, on the other hand, had gone completely white. 

Iris stood her ground. “We’re friends. We… talk sometimes. He’s a good listener.”

“And you were talking at seven on Saturday morning.”

“We were.”

“What about half-past nine yesterday?”

Iris slowly shook her head. “No. I was at work.”

Singh sighed. “Thank you for your statement, Ms West.” He looked around the room. “I know none of you believe it. I don’t believe it either. But we’ve got evidence that this man, whoever he is, is involved in the theft of nearly a hundred thousand dollars in cash and jewels. And we’re going to do exactly what we would do for anyone else. I want you to find him and bring him in for questioning. _Quietly_. If he’s smart and he really is a good guy, he’ll come in on his own.”

“What if he doesn’t come in?” Detective Frost asked.

“Then, if we have to, we’ll run the Flash to ground.”


	6. Differential Diagnosis

The _Central City Picture News_ headlined its Monday edition with ‘The Flash Wanted in Connection with $100,000 Robberies’.

Caitlin sat in Jitters with Cisco and Iris, trying to look relaxed as they stared down at the newspaper and the now-familiar picture of Barry in the suit. They were holding the council of war out in public like this for two reasons: it wouldn’t take a genius to start drawing associations between the Flash and STAR Labs, and security at the building – as Iris herself had memorably proved – was not all it could be. The second reason was the coffee.

It also encouraged the others to keep their voices down, so they could be lost in the morning rush. Iris, Caitlin noticed, was having a lot of trouble with this.

“This is so stupid,” she said for the fourth time. “I can’t believe they printed it.”

“Why would they do it?” Caitlin asked.

“Because it’s _news_ ,” Iris spat. “Because every other paper in the city would lead with it if they could.”

“Don’t they care what might happen?” Caitlin had visions of Barry’s entire rogues gallery descending on the city in an effort to draw him out into the waiting arms of the police.

“Whatever happens, they’ll just print that too,” Iris responded.

“But, wanted for questioning’s not… bad, right?” Cisco asked. “It’s not like they want to arrest him.”

Cisco’s sleepy expression was another reason they were at Jitters. He’d been going over and over every bit of evidence he could since he’d gotten back from the police station. He’d barely slept, and Caitlin had been checking to make sure he was eating real food. She’d decided she had to make him stop somehow, and the promise of a mocha the size of his head was just enough to do the job.

“No, it’s not the same,” Iris replied. “You need a warrant for that. And I guess they’d have trouble finding a judge who’d agree to put his name to a warrant for a superhero. But…” She let out a long sigh. “My dad told me something once, and when he did, he said he was talking as my dad, not as a cop. He said if the police ever want to question you about something they think you’re involved in, don’t go in unless they bring you, call a lawyer, and don’t say a word.”

“I guess he must have given Barry the same speech,” Cisco murmured.

A silence settled over the table. They all knew that if Barry decided it was best for him to put on the suit and run straight into the precinct with his hood down then there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

It was left up to Caitlin to restart the conversation. “So what do we do?” she asked. “Can we prove it’s not him?”

“I don’t know,” Cisco answered. “Not without giving away that we know way more about the Flash than we should. Like what his suit’s made out of. And his shoe size.”

“What about the red streak?” Iris suggested. “What else could do that?”

“No idea,” Cisco responded. Caitlin touched his arm and his voice dropped. “It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not even the right shade of red, if you look at it real close. It’s… there’s something really weird about it. That’s what I’m saying.”

It was the uncertainty that was getting to all of them, Caitlin could tell. There were too many things they didn’t know. And it was moments like these that she missed Doctor Wells the most. Even knowing who he really was – what he really was – couldn’t stop her from looking back on their work together and missing the security he’d provided. If any of them had hit a problem, no matter how big or how small, they could take it to Doctor Wells and he would have found an answer. And now he was gone, and Caitlin – who hated uncertainty more than anything else – couldn’t help wishing that things had somehow been different.

Cisco, on the other hand, thrived on energy and uncertainty almost as much as Barry did, and was apparently still thinking. He was smiling again.

“What if that’s the point?” 

“The point of what?” Caitlin asked.

“The point of this. The high-speed robberies. The red streak on the cameras. What if it’s not a coincidence?”

“Someone’s trying to frame the Flash?” Iris said.

“Yeah. Why not? I mean, look at all the stuff he’s done, all the people he saved, all the metas he’s stopped. Come on, if you were a bad guy, would you want to take him on head to head? Or would you try getting the cops to do it for you?”

Wishing she didn’t have to burst his bubble, Caitlin asked, “How?”

“How?”

“Yes. How this meta – we have to assume it’s a meta – doing this and making it look like the Flash?”

Cisco took a triumphant swig of his coffee. “We’ll figure that out, Caitlin. Maybe it is another speedster. Or maybe it’s someone with a power to… like hypnotise people. And machines. So all that stuff they thought they saw and we thought we saw on the CCTV wasn’t actually what really happened.”

Caitlin looked at Iris. She had an uneasy feeling that, while this made a great story, it had a lot of holes. But it did give them a new direction to go in, and that was better than nothing.

If Iris shared her doubts, she didn’t let it show in her voice. “Here’s another question. Why those two places? Why that bank and that jewellery store? Were they random? Or are they connected somehow?”

“Yeah.” Cisco nodded. “Did the bank recently refuse a loan to a guy in red who swore revenge?”

Caitlin couldn’t help snorting with laughter. Some of her coffee went up her nose. Cisco and Iris were gracious enough to pretend they didn’t notice.

* * *

Caitlin thought that if she ever did have kids, she’d probably have to name one of them after Felicity Smoak. Not because she really thought about hypothetical children, or even that she really liked the name, but because at this point it was the only way she could think to repay the other woman for everything she’d done to help the little team-cum-family at STAR Labs.

This assistance was currently manifesting as the link to CCPD’s computer system, which allowed Caitlin to read and search all the witness statements from the bank robbery. The legality of this didn’t trouble her nearly as much as it had once done. Once you started holding superpowered criminals captive under your office, the law took on a lot more shades of grey.

Sadly, Felicity’s good work wasn’t yielding many results at the moment. The police had checked, and none of the bank staff remembered anybody who stood out as unusual or potentially vengeful. They also didn’t remember seeing anything strange on the morning of the robbery. Or, if they had, they were unwilling to commit themselves. Even now, the citizens of Central City had some things they wouldn’t mention because they sounded impossible.

She looked over at Iris, who was concentrating on the jewellery store. No leads there either. It occurred to Caitlin that the police were probably looking into this angle themselves, and they were probably better at it. All she could see was that there was nothing which might make either crime personal to anyone and that the two locations – half way across the city from each other – had nothing in common either.

“Nothing,” Iris declared, ten minutes later. “No other crimes like this anywhere in the state in the last year. It doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why start with a jewellery store and then go straight to a bank? Why not hit another jewellery store? Or a couple more? Or try some in Keystone or Midway?”

Caitlin nodded. “It does seem ambitious.”

“It’s weird. My dad once arrested the same guy for the same crime three times in two months. Okay, he wasn’t that smart, but criminals have… comfort zones, I guess.”

“ _Modus Operandi_ ,” Caitlin said to herself.

This just added to the pile of unanswered questions, and Caitlin wondered if this is what real cops had to deal with every day and how they did it. Medicine was different; there were definite, clear symptoms, there were differential diagnoses and there was the entire body of research going back decades if not centuries to use as reference.

She stopped biting her lip. Maybe that was where they’d been going wrong. They’d been asking and trying to answer disconnected questions. What they needed was a hypothesis. This could then be tested and then proved or disproved.

The most likely explanation for the evidence they had was that the crimes had been committed by a speedster. They had – they hoped – eliminated Barry as a candidate. Caitlin couldn’t quite rule out miraculous resurrection, but even with that, Doctor Wells as the culprit raised more questions than it answered. Occam’s Razor again. Therefore a third party, a new speedster. She shut off the part of her mind screaming to know how that was possible and focussed on the assumption that it was. Now, how did you test for a speedster?

“Iris,” she said. “I have an idea. Can you go through the missing persons reports for the last year? Are there any that relate to serving military personnel and particularly any reports that might have been filed by the army?”

Iris made the connection immediately. “You think General Eiling has something to do with this?”

“I think it’s possible,” Caitlin answered. “He might have tried to replicate Barry’s abilities.”

“And he succeeded, and they got away, and now they’re robbing banks?”

“It’s only a possibility,” Caitlin admitted.

Iris smiled. “No, it’s good. Metahuman soldiers is his thing. What are you going to do?”

“If someone else was transformed into a speedster, however it happened, then they’d probably undergo physiological changes very similar to Barry’s.”

“Good thing you know so much about Barry’s body, then.”

Caitlin gave her a sharp look. Iris just smiled back.

They went back to work, and were still pouring over the information when Joe came in on his lunch break. Barry strolled in with him, but Caitlin had become so used to Barry zapping into rooms that it took her a moment to register his presence. 

Joe apparently noticed the look. “I don’t want him running around till we find out who’s really behind this.”

“Have you guys found anything?” Barry asked hopefully.

Caitlin looked at Iris, who shook her head. She shook her own. “Not yet. I’ve been searching hospital records for anyone presenting similar… symptoms to you. Unusual tremors, persistently high vitals, sudden metabolic changes, increased immune response…”

“Hey!” Barry protested. “When you say it like that, it sounds really… bad.”

“Did you find anything?” Joe asked.

“Not yet, no.”

Joe nodded. “If it were me, I’d be looking for a skinny guy clearing out buffets, Big Belly Burger and still ordering enough energy bars to feed a football team.”

“Hey!” Barry said again.  

Caitlin ignored him. She scribbled a note at the bottom of her search criteria. It was fifteen items long, and she was wondering whether it made more sense to do them all at once or split them into groups.

Then Cisco bolted into the room.

“Guys! Guys! Oh, hey, Barry. Hi, Joe.”

“You okay?” Barry asked.

Cisco shrugged. “I fell asleep running a search, but I found something.”

He turned and scurried out of the room again. Caitlin pulled herself to her feet as the others gave chase. Whatever he’d found out had to be important, she could almost feel the energy coming off him. He was speaking quickly, taking it on trust that they could keep up.

“So I’ve been over and over the CCTV from the bank and the jewellery store and the footage definitely hasn’t been tampered with so whatever made that red streak really was there. I still think that someone’s trying to make Barry look bad because it’s so obvious but it’s not exactly the right shade of red either. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that it did show up on those cameras, so I wondered why not on the traffic cameras?”

“We had that footage looked at too,” Joe said.

Cisco’s grin got wider. “Yeah, but not by an analyst who knew what they were looking for. Without the STAR Labs enhancements, what you get from the traffic cameras in this city is usually pretty crappy, which might actually a good thing because if it wasn’t, someone might try using them to track the Flash.”

“What did you find, Cisco?” Joe asked.

They reached the lab and got their answer. Cisco’s big screen showed an image of the crossing near the bank. The angle was awkward, and didn’t quite reach the building itself, but they could all see the indistinct red streak on the edge of the sidewalk. Another image, this one with the jewellery store front and centre, and the streak just coming into frame towards it.

“I even checked out the cameras near the railway station,” Cisco went on. “From when that guy you interviewed said he went to buy the stolen jewellery.”

Sure enough, there was another blur on an image of the walkway up to the station’s indoor concourse.

“That’s definitely not me,” Barry said.

“Can you prove it?” Joe asked. “Without being too honest?”

Barry shrugged. “I don’t run on the sidewalk.”

“Hey, I’m not done being a genius yet,” Cisco interrupted.

“Go on then,” Caitlin said.

“Okay,” Cisco responded. “Joe, when you were after the Mardons, did they ever just show up at a bank they were going to rob?”

Joe shook his head. “No. They weren’t stupid. They’d check it out before they went in. Count the guards, mark the cameras, find out when it was quiet.”

He stared at Cisco with something that looked a lot like paternal pride. Barry grinned. Cisco grinned back and nodded. A flick of the screen brought up a familiar image of the junction and the blur, except that this one’s date stamp was a day earlier.

“I give you the bank-robbing blur casing its target.”

Caitlin smiled too, as much from seeing Cisco back to his old self as the result. “Can we track it?” she asked.

“I’m already on it,” Cisco replied. “Give me two hours and I’ll have a program searching every camera in the city for that fake red streak, so when it starts checking out its next heist, we’ll know.”


	7. He Who Waits

Barry had never been any good at being patient. He’d always been restless; if he had to get somewhere, he’d run rather than walk. His mind was constantly jumping from one thing to another. It was one of the reasons he managed to be late for everything, he always thinking so far ahead that he’d totally forgotten what was supposed to come next.

Being the Flash had just made things worse. Most of the time, speed itself was enough to solve his problems, there wasn’t much of a need to plan things in advance. Even when there was, the plans tended to come unglued and then he and the others had just fallen back on reacting. Oliver had taught him that he didn’t have to charge in with no plan at all, but that wasn’t the same thing as just waiting.

And waiting was what they had to do. Days and days of nothing happening while Barry did his best to keep distracted on the impossible cases and the more day to day ones that came through the lab. It wasn’t easy; he checked his phone every chance he got, always ready for Cisco’s call to charge out of the station and into action.

He was also fighting the urge to pull on the suit and hit the streets himself, but Joe had forbidden that. Even if CCPD weren’t looking for the Flash, Barry had no idea what he should be searching for, and zipping wildly across town might just make things worse. Joe, veteran of a thousand stake-outs, knew that sometimes you have to wait for the bad guy to come to you.

He confessed all this to his dad – being vague about the details in case they were overheard – once he’d reassured him that the newspapers’ fears about Central City turning into a war zone like Starling had last year were totally made up. His dad, like he usually did, told him to listen to Joe. He also told Barry that when he’d been practicing medicine, one of the worst parts of the job was after he started a patient on a new treatment, waiting to see if they improved, stayed the same or even got worse. His dad finally told him he needed to find a hobby, something he couldn’t do at super-speed, like listening to audio books. Books, his father reminded him, were a great way to pass the time. Fifteen years in prison had made Henry Allen a very patient man.

Then, on Friday morning at four a.m., Barry’s phone shook him awake.

“Cisco?”

“Hey, man, you need to come to STAR Labs like right now.”

“Didn’t you go home?”

“Of course I did, but the computer pinged me half an hour ago. I didn’t want to wake you up till I got here.”

“Have you found the streak?”

“Yeah.”

Barry hung up. Ten seconds later he was changed and running across the city. He took an indirect route, remembering what Cisco had said about the cameras, running slow – 150 mph max – and avoiding anywhere he might pass early commuters, cops or insomniacs.

Cisco was at his computer when Barry come to a stop in the doorway, tapping away at the keyboard. The only other sound was the priceless lab coffee machine gurgling to itself in the corner.

“What did you find?” Barry asked.

“There.” Cisco pointed to a trio of images, each capturing the now-familiar blur.

“I don’t recognise the street,” Barry said.

“Probably because it’s right on the edge of the city. Williams Drive. And that’s the junction with Eighty-Second.”

“How do you know that’s the target?” Barry asked.

Cisco grinned and indicated two of the pictures. “Because that’s the same junction, a couple of seconds apart. The blur’s going in the same direction both times. It’s circling.”

“What’s it circling?”

“A research complex belonging to Mercury Labs.”

Barry closed his eyes. Of course it would be Mercury Labs. But at least that gave them an in this time. He looked at the pictures again, trying to get a sense of the indistinct buildings in the background, and finally noticed the time codes.

“Cisco, this is from fourteen hours ago.”

“Do you have any idea how much time it takes to crunch the footage from an entire city?” Cisco responded, pouring himself some coffee. “Even with all this, computing power, you’re lucky we’re only twelve hours behind. Besides, this thing doesn’t like hitting places in the middle of the night. We’ve got time.”

“Yeah, but not much. Whatever this is goes in early. It hit the jewellery store as it opened, and the bank just before the morning rush.”

Cisco nodded. “Okay, so what do you want to do?”

“Call Caitlin and Joe. And Iris. Tell them what you’ve found.”

“Okay. What about you?”

Barry braced himself. “I’m going to call Tina McGee. So… I’ll need the key to Wells’ office.”

Cisco’s grin vanished. He got out of the chair and left the room. Two minutes later, he was back holding out a small, nondescript key. Barry took it, and Cisco sat down, reaching for the phone.

In the aftermath of Wells’ death, none of them had known what to do with the private office he’d left at STAR Labs. Barry had wanted to throw everything away. Caitlin had said they should at least go through it first. In the end, Cisco had settled the argument by simply locking the door and hiding the key.

The lock protested, but Barry finally got the door open. Inside was the small, plain room that Wells had kept as a personal space at the lab. Or at least, that’s what they’d all understood. Now Barry couldn’t help wondering how much time he’d actually spent in there and how much of it was part of the act. Had he ever read the books on the shelves? Did he really like the music on the MP3 player? How had he learned to play chess or speak Latin? Ronnie had said that Hartley Rathaway was the only other person who might be able to give them some answers, but how much of that would be a lie too?

Barry told himself it didn’t matter now. All that Wells had left behind him was the smell of dust.

Amongst all the minimalist décor and slim-line technology, the battered leather address book was easy to find. Barry flipped through the pages until he found the original Starling City contact details for Tina McGee, carefully written down by her friend Harrison, who’d died fifteen years ago. Beneath them, in handwriting that was almost but not quite identical, were a few more crossed-out numbers, and finally one that was current.

There was no chair in the room. Barry stood to make the call. It rang and went to voicemail. He tried again, and this time a muddled voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Doctor McGee? I’m very sorry to wake you. This is Barry Allen. From the CCPD crime lab.”

“Yes, I… Mr Allen, it’s half past four in the morning.”

“I know, and I’m very sorry, but this is an emergency. You’ve probably seen the reports on the news of the unusual robberies in the last two weeks.”

“Yes… I have.” Her tone was waking up.

“We have evidence that this person may be targeting the Mercury Labs complex on Williams Drive. Today. Possibly first thing in the morning going by the pattern.”

Doctor McGee didn’t manage to hide a yawn from the phone. “Alright, Mr Allen. Because of our history, I’ll take your word for this. What would you like me to do?”

“Could you email any information you have about this complex to Detective Joe West? I’ll give you his address.”

“I’ll need time to get to the office. Give me an hour.”

“Thank you. Do you know what time the complex opens?”

“Seven, I think.”

“Thank you,” Barry said again.

There was a pause and a few indistinct noises from far end of the line. “Mr Allen,” she said, “what I’ve read about these crimes suggests they’re very unusual indeed. Would you be enlisting some unusual assistance to stop them?”

Barry had thought of a way to deal with a direct question, but he hadn’t considered how to respond to such an indirect one. Apparently, that was answer enough.

“Tell your friend in red that I don’t believe everything I read in the newspapers. For now. Good luck, Mr Allen.”

* * *

 Forty-five minutes later, the emails from Tina McGee arrived in Joe’s inbox. The STAR Labs team had shaken off their sleep enough to be waiting for them.

The complex was a maze of labs, narrow corridors, storage rooms and administration offices. This was just what Barry had been expecting. Like STAR Labs, Mercury kept all the shiny, showy research in its downtown skyscraper. The normal, slow, day-to-day science was conducted somewhere out of sight.

It had only taken Barry a few seconds to memorise the ground plan, but all that had done was convince him that between the narrow, twisty corridors, the sensitive machinery and the frequent security doors, the inside was no place to try and run someone down.

“So we’ll have hit the blur outside,” Joe said.

Cisco nodded. “Yeah. I’m scanning the cameras, but I don’t know if you’ll have enough warning before it gets to the front door. But the main gate onto Williams Drive is the only way in or out. Unless this thing can fly too…”

“Let’s hope not,” Caitlin said.

“But Barry can’t just stand on the corner in the suit all morning,” Iris pointed out. “What happens if this blur sees him? Or someone calls the cops?”

Joe tapped the computer map. “Cabot Park is four blocks away. There’s a visitor parking lot here.”

“We can take the van, I guess,” Barry suggested.

“I’ll drive,” Caitlin said.

“And you stay in the passenger seat,” Joe added. “I’ll be there to back you up.”

Cisco slid his chair across the room and started flipping on the radio headsets and the other screens that turned the Cortex into the Flash’s mission control. “Okay, I’ll handle coms. Iris, you watch the cameras. Use that screen there for anything else you need.”

“Right.” Iris settled herself in Caitlin’s normal spot.

“Don’t worry,” Barry told her. “You’ll be great.”

She gave him a nervous smile and nodded. “Be careful. You too, daddy.”

Joe gave her a reassuring nod and headed for his car. Caitlin followed, retrieving the keys to the van as she went. Barry gave her a fifty-second head start and then grabbed the suit, changed and ran for the underground lot. On the way, he had to stop and sneak past Joe, who was checking his gun in one of the silent corridors. He still managed to overtake Caitlin as she clicked her way towards the van and was in the passenger seat before the remote unlocking lights had finished flashing.

“Can’t you put something over that?” Caitlin asked as she fastened her seatbelt.

“What, the suit?”

“Yes. Even with the hood off, it’s not exactly subtle.”

“Okay, sure.”

He left the van for a few seconds and pulled a t-shirt over the top of the suit. This particular t-shirt was lying around the lab because Cisco had found it during the summer and they’d been waiting for an opportunity to show the others. It bore the city’s seal with a stylised lightning bolt behind it, and proudly proclaimed ‘Central City: Home of the Flash’.

Caitlin stared silently at the message for a few moments, and then started the van’s engine. “I’m going to kill Cisco,” she said calmly.

They rolled out into the pre-dawn city and headed south. The traffic was getting thicker, but it wasn’t enough to slow them down. Caitlin’s methodical but aggressive driving managed to get the van out of the midtown area, where they stopped for a refill of coffee. Caffeine didn’t really have much of an effect on Barry any more, but he appreciated Caitlin’s need for it. He bought her a large mocha which, taking quick swigs at junctions, she managed to finish just as they found Williams Drive. They followed the road for half a mile into the uplands that marked the city’s perimeter, and arrived at Cabot Park just in time to watch the sun rising over the lake.

“We’re here,” Barry said into the radio.

“That’s great,” Cisco replied. “Joe’s just arrived. He’s outside a gas station on the other side of the complex. 

Barry leaned out of the window. “There’s a lot of trees around here. I can’t really see the entrance.”

“Just relax, man. You’ve got eyes and ears here.”

It didn’t take long for one of the unforeseen downsides of the Flash suit to make itself known. Cisco had designed it to be resistant to a number of extreme environments, a precaution that had saved Barry’s life on more than one occasion. What he had not designed it for was sitting still in a car seat on a warm September morning.

Barry passed the time as best he could eating the pastries he’d picked up at the coffee shop. They didn’t last long, and afterwards he had nothing to do.

“Can you please stop twitching?” Caitlin said, five minutes later.

“I don’t think he can,” Iris contributed over the radio. “He was like that even before the lightning.”

“We could put some music on,” Barry suggested.

“Oh, no.” Caitlin shook her head. “You’ll just tap along to every song they play. Or you’ll sing.”

“Fifteen minutes, guys,” Cisco interrupted. “I think I can see the day shift security starting to open up.”

They settled into a determined silence. Minutes crawled by. Only when Caitlin glared at Barry did he realise he’d started tapping his hand against his leg again. He stopped. Then he started again, with the other hand on the other leg.

“Barry!”

“I swear, I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“Maybe we should add that to the symptoms of Lightning Psychosis,” Iris said.

Caitlin and Cisco both laughed at that. Barry had heard, second hand, that when Iris had started talking to Caitlin, she’d explained she hadn’t really bought the excuse once she’d had a chance to think about it, but she appreciated Caitlin giving them all the chance to go back to normal. After that, any time Barry did anything Iris considered particularly dumb, it was because of the Lightning Psychosis.

“I may just do that,” Caitlin replied. “I’m very overdue for research paper.”

Barry stared at her. “You wouldn’t. Would you?”

“Make up a medical condition to get petty revenge?” Cisco chimed in. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the _American Journal of Medicine_ about the paper they received on Rathaway Syndrome.”

“That was you and Ronnie,” Caitlin protested.

“Yeah, but you made the list.”

There was a beep on the line. “That’s Joe,” Cisco said. “I’m putting him on. What’s up?”

“The first car’s gone into the complex,” Joe said. “And I can hear you arguing like a bunch of bored middle-schoolers on a field trip.”

They took turns to sheepishly murmur apologies, although Barry had heard tapes of cops on stakeouts, and they didn’t sound any better. For Joe’s sake, he tried to sound as contrite as the others, and then went back to waiting in silence.

For two minutes and ten seconds, when the alarm went off.

“Barry, it’s the blur!” Iris exclaimed.

Cisco hadn’t finished his agreement when Barry bolted out of the van. He pulled his hood up, threw the t-shirt over his shoulder and ran for the road. He got there just in time to catch a glimpse of… something at one of the complex’s main doors before it vanished inside. He raced up to the entrance, but forced himself to stick to the plan, stop on the road and wait.

A car slid to a stop on his left. The horn blared. He could see the two guards in the gatehouse gesturing towards him.

Then he saw the shape again. It appeared from the same door it had entered and rushed across the short distance to the road. Barry’s senses had kicked into high gear as soon as it appeared. Everything else was moving at a snail’s pace, but the thing was still coming towards him impossibly fast. He forgot about his racing heart and focussed, forcing his senses faster and faster until the world froze solid around him and he finally got a good look at the source of the blur.

For an instant, all he could see was a silhouette of red light the size and shape of a human being. It was another split-second before he could see the man inside the halo. At least, he thought it was a man. It seemed solid and real enough, but the details were indistinct and it shifted and flickered like a statue made of smoke. Golden smoke.

Barry threw himself towards it, aiming to grab it and see how real it was. But it wasn’t there. It had retreated and was standing half way between the gatehouse and the complex’s entrance.

He lunged again and he wasn’t sure if his fist passed through it or if it really was that fast. It was on his left, and he aimed a right cross at where the head should be. But it was behind him now.

He tried to kick this time, off balance, and again the thing just wasn’t there to be hit. A last effort, a straight jab right at the heart of the thing. And this time he felt something. Something effortlessly pushing his wrist aside and then a blow that crashed against his solar plexus.

Barry staggered, barely kept his feet, and when he looked up again the shape was past the gatehouse on the road. Another instant, and it was gone.

He gave chase. Williams Drive was a long, wide road with barely a turn, perfect for building up speed. But it wasn’t enough. The shape was still gaining distance, sliding effortlessly along as if it were making the world around it move. But Barry kept going, faster and faster until he could feel the air around him begin to vibrate and realised that with the city suburbs rushing towards him, he was about to go supersonic.

But what happened next was too fast even for him.

The blur flickered, and suddenly it wasn’t ahead, it was on top of him. A micro-second glimpse of blank, unreal eyes and then pain exploded in his leg and the world twisted out of control. For a moment, Barry was flying. And then he wasn’t.

He hit the ground, but he was still moving too fast and he bounced high enough to pass over a car. He crashed down again, on his back this this time, then his arm, then his leg. Something shattered around him and something else smashed against the side of his head. The entire universe hammered against his body from all sides and he somehow found the strength to pull himself into a ball before it overwhelmed him.

He didn’t know how much time passed after that. It could have been a minute or a year. The world came back slowly. All of it hurt. There was a sound in his ear, very far away, but coming closer and closer, and he slowly realised that it was someone saying his name.

“Barry! Barry! Come on, man! Barry!”

He thought he remembered doing this before, but the details were beyond him. And just like before, the light outside his eyes was far too bright. But it was better than being alone in the dark, so he tried to keep them open.

He saw a garden, just like the one he’d played in before the world was impossible. Only this one was a mess. Something had smashed through the wooden fence, shredded a rosebush, bowled over a swing-set and left a deep rut in the lawn. It took him a moment to realise it had been him.

“Barry!”

“Iris?” he croaked.

“Barry? Oh, thank god.”

“I’m alive,” he whispered. “I think.”

It was hard to remember the last time just standing up had taken so much effort. New agonies danced and stabbed at him as he forced himself to his knees. He stopped there to breathe, and when he looked up there was a cop coming slowly and cautiously across the garden towards him.

Barry thought if he tried vibrating, he’d shake himself apart. On the other hand, his face probably had enough bruises, blood and dirt on it to make it unrecognisable. He forced himself the rest of the way to his feet and tried not to sway. 

“Jesus,” the cop said, “what are you made of?”

Barry didn’t answer. His head was clearing, and he kept watching the cop. His gun was holstered and his hand wasn’t anywhere near it. He was sweating, and the sun was in his eyes.

Then the cop gave a faint smile and a nervous laugh. “You think I want to have to tell my kid I busted the Flash? Go.”

Barry barely had the energy to smile. He braced himself for the pain, and ran for home.


	8. The Domestic Fireside

Getting the suit off was always the worst part. They took it slow, but Caitlin had never been particularly good at gentle. Finding out what had been hurt was almost as painful as the crash itself. Without the benefit of painkillers, Barry was barely in a state to register the list of his injuries as Caitlin counted them off.

“Three cracked ribs. Fractured tibia. Fractured radius. Dislocated shoulder. Dislocated kneecap. Broken wrist. Broken ankle. Severe bruising. Possible concussion that was nearly a skull fracture. All of it aggravated by running back to the van afterwards.”

With the pain clouding his judgement, Barry said, “Has anyone ever told you that you have a terrible bedside manner?”

He immediately regretted it, because she was his friend, she was only trying to help, and what kind of idiot insults the doctor who’s trying to treat them? But Caitlin just nodded.

“Yes,” she replied. “There were reasons I went into research. Now hold still, I’m going to put your shoulder back in. This will hurt.”

It did. And it hurt even more when she did the same to his kneecap.

When that pain finally faded, there was an ache in the fingers on his good side. He looked over and realised he’d been clinging to Iris’ hand. He eased his grip, mouthing an apology, but she gave a gentle squeeze in return.

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked.

It took them all a moment to realise that Iris was the only one who’d never seen Barry recovering from a bad fight before.

“Don’t worry,” Cisco said, holding an ice pack against the bass drum beating in Barry’s head. “He heals really fast. It’s another speed thing.”

Caitlin spared a moment from her work to look up. “Unfortunately, it also means any breaks have to be set quickly, before the bone begins to knit. I’ll need your help.”

He felt her let go of his hand, and she nodded. “Sure. What do I need to do?”

He couldn’t focus enough to apologise for having her watch this. It was part of the Flash’s life he’d always talked around, lying on a cold table under bright lights, trying to keep still while Caitlin issued clear, terse instructions to him or Joe or Cisco. And there was something missing this time. They were more or less finished binding him up like Boris Karloff before he realised what it was: he missed Wells’ calm voice reassuring him that he was going to be okay.

Cisco looked him up and down. “What happened, man? You were running along fine and then _wham_!”

“No,” Caitlin said.

“No?”

“We are not doing this now,” she told him. “Joe’s at Mercury Labs, but Barry needs rest. We all need sleep. It can wait.”

Barry looked up at Cisco. Cisco was trying not to yawn.

“Good,” Caitlin said. “We’ll have to put the gurney in the van. Cisco, you drive. I’ll ride in the back with Barry. Iris, could you help me collect some supplies?”

As well as its occasional stints as a mobile command centre, the STAR Labs van could also act as an ambulance. Despite his attempts to protest that he could at least sit upright, Barry was loaded horizontally into the back along with Caitlin, a box of supplies, an IV stand and a pair of crutches.

Cisco did his best to avoid bumps or sharp turns, but the journey still jarred one of Barry’s injuries every minute or so. Caitlin ignored the complaints, focussing on checking Barry’s pupil response, the glucose IV, and the swelling, temperature and settings of the fractures.

When they were stopped at what Barry assumed was a traffic light, Caitlin asked, “What does it feel like, when your bones heal?”

They’d know each other for a year, she’d run thousands of tests on him, and treated breaks, tears, cuts, bruises, concussions and burns, but she’d never once asked him what it felt like. The truth was, Barry didn’t know how to describe the ache beneath the pain as his body healed.

“Weird,” he said eventually. “Why?”

“Iris asked me while we were collecting the supplies,” Caitlin explained. “I told her we’d never really talked about it.” She sighed. “By the time I stopped treating you like a test subject and we actually became friends, the fact that you could heal so quickly was just normal.”

“But it’s not normal for Iris,” Barry muttered.

“No, it’s not.”

The van stopped again and then Cisco announced, “End of the line, guys. Everybody out.”

The trip into the house was a lot easier, mainly because they couldn’t bring the gurney. Iris kept watch for curious neighbours while Barry wrapped his good arm around Cisco, wedged a crutch under the other one and hobbled in as quickly as possible on the leg he hadn’t actually broken. Once inside, Iris took the place of the crutch and she and Cisco practically carried him up the stairs to his bedroom.

The next thing he knew, Cisco and Caitlin had vanished, leaving vague statements about supplies and checks in their wake, and it was just him and Iris, who was doing her best to smile. “You need to stop scaring me like that, Barry,” she said. “I’ll end up as grey as grandma if you keep this up.”

The bandages stopped him from attempting a casual shrug. “I’m going to be fine.”

She nodded. “I know. Cisco wouldn’t stop talking about how fast you can heal. He probably shouldn’t have told me some of the things you’ve healed _from_ , but I got the message.”

He dozed off after that, his mind glad to escape from the aches and the exhaustion. But the pain was already fading, Iris was smiling, and she was holding his hand.

* * *

He woke up a few hours later. Iris had gone, but there was a glass of juice and two energy bars balanced within easy reach of the bed. Breathing didn’t hurt anymore, and neither did his wrist under the bindings.

Fighting every instinct in his body, he took his time. Slid himself sideways. Put one foot on the floor. Then the other. He took a break to eat the energy bars and drink the juice, then used his good arm to push himself to his feet. And the pain in his legs pushed him straight back down onto the bed.

A few minutes later, he tried again, and this time managed to pull on some clothes before the aches got too much. Someone had left the crutches by the door, so he grabbed them and swung down the hall. Iris was in her room, staring at her laptop like she wasn’t really seeing the words on the screen. She didn’t even look up until he said, “Hey.”

“Barry! Should you be out of bed?”

“It’s fine. I feel… better.”

“I’ll tell Cisco and Caitlin.”

“Are they still here?” Barry asked.

Iris gave him an impish smile and led the way down the stairs. She gestured Barry to be quiet, so he tried to be as soft as possible until he reached the bottom and saw why. Cisco and Caitlin were on the couch, mostly upright and fast asleep. Their heads were resting together, Cisco’s mouth was hanging open, and Caitlin was snoring softly.

“I went to get them some coffee,” Iris whispered, “and when I came back, I found them like this. I didn’t want to disturb them. It’s sweet.”

“Did you take any photos?”

“Maybe.”

Barry cleared his throat as loudly as possible. One of Caitlin’s eyes opened, then the other.

“Wipe that grin off your face, Barry Allen,” she growled, and then elbowed her friend’s shoulder. “Cisco! Cisco! Wake up.”

“What is it?” Cisco mumbled.

“We fell asleep.”

“Oh. Was I leaning on you again?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry.”

The pair on the couch shuffled apart, enough for Barry to gratefully sink in between them.

“So what now?” he asked. “Are we still under doctor’s orders?”

“Yes, you are,” Caitlin said. “And it is my professional medical opinion that we all need an afternoon to relax. I prescribe pizza, and soda, and movies.”

“I’m on movies!” Cisco exclaimed, diving for the DVD rack.

“Something dumb,” Barry contributed.

“Gotcha,” Cisco replied, staring at the films with the same intensity he used to analyse technical failures in the suit.

“I guess that leaves us on pizzas,” Iris said.

The order only took a few minutes before they were back watching Cisco pour over the film choices. “I never knew Joe had such a great taste in films,” Cisco muttered.

“Some of those are mine,” Barry told him.

“Okay, currently we have ‘dumb’ as an option. Any other criteria?”

“No comedies,” Caitlin said. “What? They’re hardly ever funny.”

Barry didn’t argue.

Iris said, “No romantic movies.”

“Dumb, not a comedy and not romantic,” Cisco repeated. “Okay… what about… yes! _Point Break_!”

“Joe does not own _Point Break_ ,” Barry said.

Cisco held the DVD case triumphantly over his head. “I beg to differ!”

Iris smiled awkwardly. “Actually… that’s mine.”

“You are woman of taste,” Cisco told her.

“Caitlin?”

Caitlin examined the box. “Hmm… Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves in tight wetsuits. I think I can find a way to endure that for the sake of my friends.”

The pizzas arrived during one of the surfing sequences. They made Cisco answer the door.

* * *

Joe got home at six to find Iris, Barry, Cisco and Caitlin sitting in his front room, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and arguing over the closing credits of one of the _Hunger Games_ movies. As far as he could tell, Caitlin thought removing the survivalist aspect weakened the story and Iris didn’t agree. And Cisco was explaining to Barry all the references to _Schindler’s List_ and the propaganda of Leni Riefenstahl.

He paused in the doorway and smiled. He loved his daughter, and the son he’d adopted had lit up his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined. And now there were moments when he felt like he’d gained two more kids, even if they were supposed to be adults and trained professionals.

To prove the point, the conversation stopped as soon as the door closed, and all four of them stared at him like guilty teenagers.

“Hi, daddy,” Iris said, standing up to kiss him on the cheek.

“Hi, Iris. How are you, Barry?”

Barry gave a cautious wave, and Joe could see the bandages under his shirt and the crutches by his feet. “I’m okay. It looks worse than it is.”

Nine hours ago, Joe knew it had been exactly as bad as it looked, but he let that slide. Barry had always gotten up from his falls, no matter how bad, even before he’d been able to heal broken bones in an afternoon.

“Been taking it easy?” he asked.

“Yeah. Doctor’s orders.” Barry glanced at Caitlin. “Pizza and movies.”

“Sounds good to me,” Joe said.

“What happened at Mercury Labs?” Cisco asked.

Joe shook his head. “Nope. I’ve just had a long day that started a lot earlier than it should have. I do not want to talk shop tonight. Besides, they’re still processing statements and gathering evidence. Not every CSI we have is as quick as Barry. It won’t be ready till Monday.”

“What did you say about me?” Barry asked.

“I told the captain you got clipped by a car and you’d gone to the hospital just to be safe. He said he hoped that at least I’d taught Iris to look both ways.”

“Can I get you a beer, Joe?” Cisco asked.

“From my own refrigerator? Sure. Have one yourself if you want.”

Cisco shook his head. “Thanks, but we’d probably better go.”

“Yeah.” Caitlin stood. “It is getting late. I’ll come by tomorrow to check on Barry.”

Joe shook his head. “You two stay right there. Isn’t Friday supposed to be your team night?” They nodded hesitantly. “Well, I know you probably don’t want to go out after today, but the least we can do is have dinner together. As a family.”

Caitlin and Cisco shared a startled glance. They had one of those silent conversations, which ended in them both looking back at him, smiling nervously.

“If that’s really okay,” Cisco said.

“Thank you, daddy,” Iris whispered.

“Yeah, thanks Joe,” Barry added.

“So can you help me in the kitchen, Iris?” Joe asked. “We should be able to make enough jambalaya to feed everyone. Even with Barry.”

“Sure, daddy.” Iris nodded. “But I don’t think we have any sausage.”

Caitlin stood up again. “Cisco and I can get that. And we can bring back some fresh vegetables too. Do you need anything else?”

It turned out that the Snows had a family jambalaya recipe that Caitlin hesitantly offered contributions from in between giving orders to Cisco. This compensated for the loss of Iris, who had to stay lounge and make sure Barry didn’t get up and try to help. He was only allowed off the couch when it was time to hobble over to the dining table, where Iris poured the drinks and Joe served the food. And as he did so, Joe West said a silent prayer of thanks for the miracles wrought by bolts of lightning.


	9. Red Shift

Cisco broke his promise to Caitlin and came into STAR Labs over the weekend, but decided that it didn’t really count as lying. He knew she’d know he’d come in anyway.

The suit needed cleaning, checking, more cleaning and repairing. It had survived the collisions which had broken half a dozen of Barry’s bones with nothing more than some scrapes along the panelling. Those had to wait until Cisco had gotten the mud off the outside and the blood out of the lining, wondering all the time if it would be possible to add some sort of shock absorbers that didn’t restrict movement and whether those would make any difference at Barry-speed.

He made a few notes anyway – coming up with and testing new developments to the suit and its attached equipment was how Cisco kept himself busy when the Flash wasn’t chasing bad guys – and got on with the repairs. After a year, he’d had enough practice and had stockpiled enough raw materials that he could have a repair job of this sort done in a couple of hours. That gave him just enough time to get it done before he met Dante for dinner. He had to come in on Sunday – something his mother would definitely not have approved of – to run the final checks and make sure that every seam of the suit was holding up to tolerances, as a failure at speed would be catastrophic for Barry.

As a result, by the time Caitlin joined him on Monday with her confirmation that Barry’s injuries were completely healed, Cisco was confident that everything was ready for Round 2. Now all they had to do was figure out what they were up against.

The promised information from CCPD was slowly trickling in over the computer link, so for the moment all they had to go on was their own data. There wasn’t much of that, but at least it confirmed what they thought they knew. Barry really had seen something, tried to fight it and had been about to break the sound barrier when he’d had his accident.

“Did he say why he crashed?” Cisco asked.

Caitlin nodded cautiously, biting her lip. “He said he was tripped. And the data agrees with him.”

“Tripped?” Cisco repeated. “How do you trip someone running at seven hundred and forty-two miles an hour?”

“I don’t know.” Caitlin looked over his shoulder. “But look at the nerve conduction speed. It’s almost as high as we’ve ever seen it. Are you sure this is accurate?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Cisco replied. “I checked all the sensors, receivers and processor streams myself. But it still doesn’t tell us what he was looking at.”

“He told me what he saw,” Caitlin muttered, pulling a piece of paper from her purse. “When I asked him what he was chasing and what tripped him up, this is what he described.”

Cisco read Caitlin’s doctor’s scrawl. “‘Human-shaped figure. Similar height and build to Ray. Yellow or gold colour with a red aura all the way round it. Blank face and strange eyes. Fast. Not Wells.’ And that last part’s underlined.”

“He told me to do that,” Caitlin said, then sighed. “A man in yellow who isn’t Doctor Wells. How is that possible?”

“And what’s with this aura?” Cisco asked himself. “Barry doesn’t have an aura, right? And the Reverse Flash had red lightning but no aura. So why does this have one? I mean, it explains the red blur on the cameras, but that can’t have been done just for them because if you wanted to pretend to be the Flash like I thought, you’d just wear a red suit, right?”

“Perhaps something will show up on the Mercury Labs surveillance data.”

“With that name, they’d better have fast cameras.”

He looked up the footage while Caitlin got to work on the cellular analysis she always did on samples from Barry’s injuries. She’d told them time and again that who knew what sort of medical advancements were hidden in those hyperactive cells. Unfortunately, process was easiest to see after some sort of damage. Cisco had joked once that every time the Flash took a beating, it brought Caitlin one step closer to the Nobel Prize.

He was right about the Mercury Labs footage. It wasn’t quite up to STAR Labs’ standards, but it was much better than what he’d been given from the bank and the store. The first clear image he pulled up was one from the complex’s courtyard, and it showed exactly what he wanted to see. There was Barry, rushing into action from the gate with the lightning sparking around him. And there was the other blur, still red and distorted, but clearer than they’d ever seen it before. Ten minutes of playing with the pixels, and Cisco could see that it was roughly the shape of a person with the proportions Barry had described. He could even make out a faint yellow silhouette within the red.

Caitlin looked up from her microscope screen and squinted at the result. “That’s… vague,” she said.

“That’s just one frame,” Cisco responded. “I’ve got a lot more where that came from. Hey, that gives me an idea. If I can pull all the images of this other speedster from this footage and put them together, then I can build a composite model.”

Caitlin made an uncommitted sound, but Cisco didn’t let that discourage him. It wasn’t easy, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle in three dimensions, but the more pieces he found the simpler it became, and by the time Barry arrived at the lab for lunch (by bus), he had it together. He almost wished he hadn’t; the result made his chest tighten: a big, hulking yellow shape that glowed red around the edges. The face was the worst part; even without much detail they could see it tilted outwards with no hint of a nose or mouth, and the eyes protruded from the skull like an insect’s. And, weirdly, Cisco almost thought he recognised it.

“Yeah,” Barry said quietly. “That’s what I saw.”

“Another speedster,” Cisco muttered. “Another Reverse Flash.”

“But it can’t be,” Caitlin interrupted. “Iris and I have checked every city in the state. There’s no trace of anyone else with the same kind of nutritional requirements.”

“Unless he’s hiding it,” Barry pointed out. “Like Wells did.”

“Doctor Wells had his… battery,” Caitlin replied. “And he did eat a lot of burgers.”

Another silent impasse. Cisco didn’t know how they were going to figure this out if none of them could stand to mention Wells’ name. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this other speedster was wearing yellow. But why? He’d never wanted to ask Wells why he’d picked that colour, but now he wished he had. He wished he’d asked him anything about how his abilities worked or how he got them. If he had, they might have something to go on with this new guy other than a load of evidence that didn’t make sense.

When is a speedster not a speedster?

“Experimental nanoprocessors,” Barry said somewhere behind him.

Cisco blinked. “Sorry, zoned out there, man. What’s that?”

“I asked what he took this time,” Caitlin said quietly.

“A dozen prototype computer chips,” Barry repeated. “Very small, very high processing power.”

“Are they valuable?” Caitlin asked.

“Sure.” Cisco nodded. “Ten million dollars of research and development. Except there’s no one you could sell them to. There’s only about four places in the country that could use processors like this, and one of them is us. I guess Ray, maybe, but these sound like they were supposed to compete with the nanoprocessors he designed to go in his suit.” He ran his hands through his hair. “But if that’s right, then in three weeks this guy’s gone from a jewellery thief to a bank robber to an industrial spy.”

Barry sighed. “There’s got to be something we’re missing. I just can’t figure it out. God, I need a run or I’m going to explode.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Caitlin told him. “We need to make sure you’ve completely recovered. Cisco, I’ll need some help monitoring Barry’s vitals. Please.”

Cisco tore his eyes from the golden shadow on the computer screen. Caitlin was biting her lip.

He smiled. “Yeah, sure. Been a while since we’ve put the treadmill through its paces.”

But he was barely focussed on the data from Barry or the treadmill as his friend spun up to a cruising speed of six hundred miles an hour. Caitlin watched the readouts, slowly relaxing as it became clear that Barry had made a complete recovery. Cisco noticed her glancing over at him every minute or so. It had probably been a long time since she’d seen him so silent.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked eventually.

Cisco hated himself for admitting it, but he told her the truth. “What Wells would say if he were here.”

Caitlin just nodded. “Okay. What would he say?”

“He’d say ‘Cisco, take a step back’. He’d say I needed to look at all the details at once, not just one at a time.”

“So look at it.” Caitlin was almost whispering. “What do you see?”

Cisco slumped back in his chair, staring through the viewing window. He saw Barry on the treadmill, with the electricity crackling around him, his head down, arms and legs lost in a blur.

And then the lightning struck, and illuminated in the flash, Cisco saw it all. He saw the blur on the camera footage, the construct on the computer screen, the red aura, the impossible speed, the absence of ‘symptoms’, even the yellow man’s blank face and why he recognised it. And he saw the answer to his question.

When is a speedster not a speedster?

When he isn’t running.

Cisco uttered a cry of triumph and threw his arms around Caitlin. “That’s it! Oh, Caitlin, you’re a genius.” He let go of her and hit the intercom. “Barry! Barry, wind down man, I’ve got it!”

The light from the next room started to fade. “That’s great,” Barry answered. “But… what have you got?”

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Cisco replied, and he bolted out of the room back towards the Cortex.

He was half way there by the time Barry caught up with him. He might have made it, but he turned a corner and nearly ran into Iris and Joe.

“Cisco!” Iris exclaimed. “Is there a fire?”

Caitlin rounded the corner with a clatter. She was getting very good at running in heels. “Cisco's had an epiphany,” she said.

“Great,” Iris replied. “I’ve thought of something too.”

“What?”

Iris shook her head. “You go first. You look like you’re going to burst if you don’t.”

“What is it?” Barry asked Joe.

Joe shrugged. “She wouldn’t say. She just called and asked me to bring her here.”

Cisco led them back into his lab. Joe flinched when he saw the golden figure on the screen.

“Is that him?”

“That’s the best we can do from the footage,” Barry answered.

“Why does he look like that? I mean, I’m assuming it’s a ‘he’.”

“That’s what I figured out,” Cisco said. “There was so much weird stuff about him. His face. The red light. That outfit. But then I saw Barry on the treadmill and it all made sense. He hasn’t got the same posture as Barry or the Reverse Flash. He isn’t running. He’s walking.”

“The footprints!” Barry exclaimed. “God, I’m so stupid! The footprints at the crime scenes were all normal. There were no long strides. Everyone was walking, even the blur.”

“Wait,” Caitlin interrupted. “You’re saying this speedster can walk faster than Barry can run. We’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Because he’s not a speedster!” Cisco didn’t let their confusion beat his grin. “He’s just a normal guy walking at normal speed.”

“Okay, that is impossible,” Joe said. “How can he be walking at normal speed, and still travelling so fast?”

Cisco braced himself for the big leap, the thing that connected it all together. “Because he’s not moving through time at the same speed we are.”

“What?”

“Okay, think of it like this,” Cisco said. “Take a camera and record yourself walking for an hour. Play it back at ten times the speed and it looks like you’ve made the same journey in six minutes. Play it back at a hundred times the speed and it’s taken you thirty-six seconds.”

Caitlin closed her eyes and then opened them again. “So you’re saying this man is somehow accelerating himself so he’s experiencing time at… at least two hundred and fifty times normal speed?”

“Yeah!”

“How do you know?” she responded.

“The light,” Barry said, catching up. “That suit he’s wearing is projecting some kind of energy field that’s accelerating everything inside it but allowing him to interact with the rest of the world. There are photons from behind him passing through the edge of the field, and they’re being slowed down. They’re taking longer to cross that distance than they should be, much longer, so they’re losing energy and it’s making the light look red.”

“Can that happen?” Iris asked.

“Sure,” Barry said. “It happens all the time, but we usually only see it when huge distances are involved, like galaxies speeding away from each other. Astronomers call it the Hubble Shift. It’s how we know the universe is expanding.”

“How does any of this explain that face?” Joe waved at the screen again.

“It’s a mask,” Cisco told him. “The Flash suit used to have one, because I designed it for firefighters. We stopped using it because Barry couldn’t get enough air through it at speed. But this guy has to have an air supply, because the air outside the speed field is moving at normal speed, which means that from his point of view it basically isn’t. Neither’s the air he’s breathing out, so either he has to keep moving through the air or get his own supply, because if he doesn’t he’ll asphyxiate.”

He could tell the others wanted to object, especially Joe. None of them did. It made sense, and in Central City these days, sense beat out impossibilities every time.

“So,” Joe said in his cop voice, “what you’re saying is that this this guy somehow built a way to speed up time, and then used it to rob a jewellery store, a bank and a science lab. Why?”

“I think I know that,” Iris said, and apparently very much enjoyed suddenly becoming the centre of attention.

Cisco cheerfully surrendered the floor and sat down next to Caitlin. Iris looked nervously around the room. Barry smiled and gave her a prompting gesture.

“Ever since this started, I’ve been trying to see the pattern,” Iris explained. “Why that store? Why that bank? Why those labs now? It didn’t make any sense. Dad, you and… and Eddie both taught me that most criminals stick to an MO, and if they don’t, there’s a reason for it.”

“We can’t find anything geographical to link these places,” Joe said. “And it doesn’t look personal.”

“Right.” Iris seemed to take the contribution as encouragement. “But this guy planned these, didn’t he, Cisco? He came there before and he staked them out, so there had to be a reason.”

She paused again and Barry asked the obvious question, “So what have jewels, cash and this tech got in common?”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out,” Joe said.

Iris was nearly bouncing on the spot by now, and Cisco wondered if he’d looked this hyper during his exposition. “What if it’s not what he took that’s important?” she said. “What if it’s what he had to do to take it? Not just what Cisco was talking about, but what he had to get past to steal it?”

“The locks?” Barry asked.

“Why not?”

Iris looked hopefully around the room. It made Cisco think of Dante finishing a recital and waiting hopefully for the applause. And her theory made a lot of sense. Then something Barry had said when they’d been investigating the first robbery flickered through his mind.

“So he’s practicing, right? Picking locks at super-speed using his acceleration suit?”

“Mercury Labs had keycard locks on all the sensitive rooms,” Joe said. “Crystal tracked down a guy whose card just happened to stop working on Friday morning. The tech team realised that the microchip had been removed.”

Iris nodded. “That’s what I heard from the police reporter.”

Joe stood, crossed the room, and embraced his daughter. With her at his side, he turned back to the others. “So somewhere in this city is something behind three locks. A tumbler, an electronic one and a keycard lock. And this man in yellow wants it. I know some guys who might be able to help us find out where that is, but what then?”

“Barry can’t fight this man alone,” Caitlin said. “He could have killed you last time. And even if Cisco finds a way to slow him down, we’ll need backup.” She looked at Joe. “Proper backup.”

Cisco grinned. “The police working with the Flash? Finally!”

“Only if we can set it up without them arresting you,” Iris pointed out. “Or giving away Barry’s secret.”

Barry nodded. “I think I know a way.”

“How?”

He smiled. “Just like you always taught me, Joe. I’m going to ask nicely.”

* * *

David Singh had never worked a job where he could say exactly when he’d get home, but that had only started mattering since he’d met Rob. Now he was two hours late, and trying to stop thinking about how he was going to get his officers to take time out from their invaluable routine of health and safety briefings, community guidelines lectures and office politics to investigate crime and maybe make an arrest or two. It was no good. Rob was right when he said that his husband didn’t stop being Captain Singh until he got through the front door, and sometimes not even then.

It was certainly true tonight. Singh might ride a desk, but he was still a cop, and he’d never forgotten the lessons that the streets of Central City had taught him. As he left the car in the drive and headed for the house, he knew someone was watching him.

He felt more than saw the shape flicker past him and stop a dozen yards away in the shadow of a tree. He’d picked his spot well. In the dim evening, half way between streetlamps, all Singh could make out was the shape of a man and the red of the suit.

“I’d like to talk to you, Captain Singh,” said the Flash.

 Singh nodded. He wondered if the Flash was just being polite, or if he could hear a trace of nerves.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

“The robberies.”

“Do you want to make a statement?” Singh asked.

“That wasn’t me,” the Flash said. “It was someone else. I tried to stop them at Mercury Labs, but I couldn’t.”

The honesty surprised Singh. He’d heard enough people try to talk around their mistakes, pass the buck, and just plain lie. Sometimes, a cop goes so long without hearing the truth, he’s afraid he’ll forget what it sounds like.

But he had to be sure, and he knew he’d push anyone else.

“What if I still want to take you in?” he asked. “Would you come quietly? And slowly?”

The Flash didn’t answer. He didn’t run either. He waited to see what Singh would do, and that said a lot.  

Singh sighed. “Okay, yeah, I know it wasn’t you. We’ve got four good witnesses who say they saw you fighting with… something during the break-in. Not to mention the cameras.”

“There’s someone else out there,” the Flash explained, “someone who can move fast. But they’re not like me. They’re doing it differently.”

“And how can you do what you do?” Singh asked the question on behalf of the whole city.

“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

Singh hadn’t expected a straight answer anyway. “So why come to me?”

“I want to help you,” the Flash told him. “If I work with the police, we can stop this. Hold out your hand. I have something for you.”

Singh did it. The Flash moved, and then he was under the tree again. Singh looked down at the flash drive resting in his palm. He wondered if this was part of the joke.

“That’s everything we know about this criminal,” the Flash explained. “If you give it to your officers, we can form a plan to stop him.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Singh asked. “Your friends at STAR Labs?”

Again, the silence spoke volumes. For a man with such a big secret, the Flash didn’t seem like he was a very good liar.

“That’s what I thought. Okay, I’ll take a look at this and show it to the lead detective on the case. He’s your friend Iris’ father. And Eddie Thawne’s old partner. You remember Detective Thawne?”

“Yeah.”

There was a lot of pain in the word. Singh had suspected for a while that the Flash had formed quiet working relationship with at least one of his officers. He wondered whether Joe was in on it too.

“Some good people trust you,” Singh carried on, wanting the Flash to understand. “I trust them.”

“Thank you.”

The sincerity pushed Singh to be honest himself. “And one more thing. I can’t say this as a cop, but anyone who tells you cops aren’t allowed to be human is full of crap. Back in April, you stopped a fire in a high-rise downtown. My husband was in there, and thanks to you everyone got out alive.”

The Flash didn’t speak. Then Singh heard the door open behind him and someone call his name. He turned, and there was a flicker of light in the corner of his eye. He was alone on the sidewalk.

“David?” Rob said. “That was… was that him?”

Singh sighed. “It’s complicated. I’m really sorry I’m late.”

Rob slung an arm around his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I kept your plate warm.”

“Thank you.”

Rob glanced into the night and chuckled. Doing his best impersonation of the old TV show, he said, “Who was that masked man anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Singh finished the echo, and meant it when he said, “but I’m glad I got a chance to thank him.”


	10. Followed Fast and Followed Faster

Caitlin tried not to pace. Like many bad ideas they’d had over the past year, this was mainly tried because of the lack of anything better. Admitting to the police – or at least confirming – that they’d been working with the Flash was worrying enough, but now they were bringing someone even Joe barely knew into the lab to work alongside Barry himself and hoping that she didn’t put two very obvious twos together.

It might have been easier if they could have found a reason a reason to leave Barry out, but that wasn’t an option. Everyone knew he’d spent time at STAR Labs, and he was the main CSI on the case, so keeping him away would just raise further questions. They had never been very good at the ‘secret’ part of the Flash’s secret identity, so Caitlin tried to make herself believe that by the time Joe’s new partner did find out, she had a reason to keep the secret as well.

This was one of those days where she relied on Cisco to distract her, or at least point out a potential bright side that she’d missed. But Cisco had gone quiet again, which just gave her something else to worry about.

Caitlin braced herself as the seldom-used entry buzzer flickered on and tried to focus on Joe’s reminder to act normally, which was next to impossible when you actually tried to do it.

Joe came in first, all business, with Barry strolling along behind him. The woman who brought up the rear wasn’t quite hiding the curiosity with which she looked around the inside of what had once been a national catastrophe and had since stood silent and brooding in the heart of the city like the legs of Ozymandias.

Joe handled the introductions. “Detective Crystal Frost, this is Doctor Caitlin Snow.”

Caitlin shook the other woman’s hand, and couldn’t stop herself glancing over at Cisco. Neither could Barry.

Cisco just pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and tried to look hurt. “Don’t look at me, that one’s way too easy.”

“And this is Cisco Ramon,” Joe said.

“And is… he here?” Frost asked. “The Flash?”

“Oh… he’s around,” Cisco replied, doing a good impression of feigned nonchalance as he tilted his head towards the camera watching the lab.

Frost nodded. “I guess he comes and goes. So shall we get started? I’ve been looking at the information you gave us about the locks and it looks like a good lead. We’ve both asked around and there are only really two places in the city with all three types of security.”

“One of them is City Hall,” Joe said. “Archives and storage, and the city government offices. The problem is that none of the places inside have all three types of locks at once. Some of them have two, but not all three.”

Cisco looked at the computer. “Plus, City Hall. Anything they’ve got in there, you can just ask for. If you want to pay a hundred bucks and wait two months.”

“It doesn’t really seem probable,” Barry confirmed.

Frost cautiously opened a new window on the computer. “That’s why we decided that this was much more likely. The Central City Museum of Art. This wing is closed to the public at the moment. On Monday they’ll be opening a new exhibition on the relationship between art and technology. It’s going to be called ‘Deus Ex Machina’.”

“God from the machine,” Joe translated.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Caitlin remembered Ronnie’s team hanging the phrase on a banner inside the almost-ready particle accelerator until Doctor Wells made them take it down. It worried her that they might have been right after all.

Barry spoke, indicating the computer. “There are the three locks. A tumbler lock to get into the closed corridors, a combination lock on the entrance to the exhibition hall and a keycard to access the storage area where the exhibits are being kept until this weekend.”

“What sort of exhibits?” Caitlin asked.

Frost brought up the museum’s website. “Paintings of local industry. Some classic Keystone-built cars. Turn-of-the-century chronometers. Glassware. Enamels. Valve radios. Modern sculptures made from recycled electronics.”

“I called one of the curators,” Joe said. “Almost all of these items are rare. Some of them are unique. He said that just made it impossible to say how they’d be worth.”

“His best guess was ‘a lot’,” Frost added.

Barry looked back at the gallery map. “I guess the exhibition hall would be the best place to try and intercept this guy. Cisco, what do you think?”

Cisco blinked and looked up. “Umm… yeah. Barry, Caitlin, could I speak to you alone for a moment?”

He rushed out of the room, hardly waiting for an answer. Two corridors away, he picked one of the tidier storerooms and closed the door behind him.

“Dude, you have got to work on not being suspicious,” Barry said.

“What’s wrong?” Caitlin asked.

“Monday, right?” Cisco said. “So he’ll probably hit the place on Friday, because there might be too many people in there at the weekend. That gives us three days build a trap.”

“Don’t worry, man.” Barry smiled. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Cisco shook his head. “That’s the thing. I already have.”

“So… what’s the problem?”

“High frequency sonic attack won’t work, because he might be quicker than the sound waves. We can’t use a laser because he moves too fast for it to aim. An electricity trap would be way too obvious. Ray’s nanites are a maybe but we don’t know enough about him to reprogram them properly.”

Caitlin held up her hand. “Why are you telling us this?”

He kept talking like he hadn’t heard her. “This guy’s got every molecule in his body accelerated by a factor of at least two hundred. The easiest way to slow him down is to take that energy away.”

“So how do we do that?”

Finally, he answered. “Using a machine to drain it out of him at a molecular level.”

Now she understood. In layman’s terms, when the particles making up an object lost their energy, the object cooled down.

“Like the Cold Gun?” Barry asked.

“Yeah,” Cisco said, all of his own energy deserting him. “Like Snart’s gun. Only I guess this would be more like a net. We’d have more control, and it’d only operate on a fixed area. But the principle’s exactly the same.”

Caitlin didn’t ask if there was another way. If there was, Cisco would have suggested that instead. He’d made it clear enough he’d been through every alternative he could think of.

Barry smiled. “Then let’s do it. We know you can built it fast and we know it works. It’s just what we need to stop this guy, and it’s about time this great idea you had got to do some good.”

“Yeah…” Cisco breathed. “Okay.”

He and Barry shared a smile. Caitlin could see he was already putting the machine together in his head and imagining how he’d improve on his previous designs.

“Let’s just make sure that this time we dismantle it properly afterwards,” she said awkwardly.

“Yes, Caitlin,” they chorused, and she smiled too.

* * *

 Speed was important. They’d all agreed that robber probably wouldn’t need a recon run around the museum since he obviously already knew what to expect, and that gave them very little warning. Cisco’s program was monitoring the cameras around the museum - and City Hall, just in case they were wrong – but they had to proceed as if the attempt would come at the end of the week. Barry was certain that it would. There was something about this man, something thoughtful, considerate, patient that had convinced him. Joe and Crystal Frost shared his guess, and Joe even called it a cop’s hunch.

With the dubious consent of the museum’s curator, the machine Cisco called the Cold Tap was snuck into the empty gallery on Thursday evening by some plain-clothes cops. Barry discovered there were few more unnerving places than an empty museum. Their footsteps on the polished floor echoed through the long, rectangular gallery. He felt exposed, standing under an enormous glass ceiling in a room that was so obviously intended to contain works of art but was completely bare.

While the Tap was set up, he familiarised himself with the layout, doing his best to look bored and curious but in fact making a mental map of the room he’d be fighting in. The main entrance was a pair of double-doors made of heavy wood and glass at the western end, and beyond those was the short corridor to the rest of the museum, currently locked up until the exhibit opened. At the gallery’s opposite end was another, smaller door which led into a warren of passageways which would technically be open to the public but no one ever used. And nearly two thirds of the way down the gallery was a third door, carefully concealed by an ornamental pillar, which led to the staff-only area, utility rooms and the below-ground storage area where most of the exhibits were currently being kept.

Barry mapped the locks in his mind. The other speedster would have to get past two of them just to reach the gallery, and the third one probably wouldn’t slow him down very much. At least they’d have some warning while he broke in. Enough time for the Flash to swing into action.

This was also why Cisco was setting up the Tap right in front of the service door. It consisted of four cones about five feet high, wider at the bottom and with flatted tops, which were set up at the corners of a large rectangle. Cisco was particularly proud of them, as at a glance they looked enough like modern art or just supporting plinths to be overlooked in a gallery.

Once the machine was assembled, it took half an hour of checks and double checks before Cisco pronounced himself happy. “The power-source is hidden behind that pillar,” he explained to the cops. “Nobody touch it or STAR Labs will get the blame for another hole in the city.” One or two people laughed. “Now, I know Detective West and Detective Frost will be the only ones in the room, but because this guy moves so fast, the Flash will have to turn on the Tap himself. If you do end up in here, you won’t get any warning. So, no matter what happens, don’t step inside the conductors.”

“What happens if we do?” one of the cops asked.

Cisco shrugged. “Do you remember the end of _Terminator 2_? Hasta la vista, baby? Probably something like that.” 

The plan was pretty simple. Joe and Crystal Frost would be the only ones in the gallery, hidden backup for the Flash. The rest of the cops would be acting like art enthusiasts throughout the museum and would converge only when given the signal. Details were worked out, warnings were issued, and later, when everyone knew their place, the STAR Labs team held their own private briefing.

“Here,” Cisco told Barry, handing him something that just looked like a very basic digital watch, “this is the trigger for the Tap. Like I said, you’ll have to press it when you’ve got him in position. We’ll be monitoring the power output from the van.”

“How long will it take to work?”

“He should start slowing down immediately, but it’ll take a couple of seconds to build up to full power.”

“A few seconds?” Iris asked. “But won’t that be much longer for him?”

“Every second we experience would be somewhere between three to four minutes to him,” Caitlin put in.

Barry nodded. “Then I might have to make sure he stays in in the trap for long enough for it work.”

“Barry, that’s crazy,” Cisco responded.

“But if I don’t, he might get away,” Barry said. “Anyway, he’ll be slowed down, and my suit can take it, right?”

“I guess,” Cisco muttered.

“What if it can’t?” Iris asked.

Caitlin cleared her throat. “She’s right, Barry. The nearest EMTs are a block away. There should be someone closer with medical training if something goes wrong.”

“I don’t think you being in there is a good idea,” Barry said, knowing, just from the look on her face, that the argument was as good as lost.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Barry,” Caitlin replied. “Joe and Detective Frost will look after me. Besides, I have every confidence that the Tap will work, but we don’t know exactly what it will do to the other speedster.”

Cisco let out another sigh. “Yeah. There’s a chance it could do him some damage. I just didn’t have time to refine it. And I just want to _catch_ the guy.”

Barry remembered the end of Cisco’s movie. “Okay, I’ll talk to Joe. He’s taking the front door and Detective Frost is guarding the other one.”

“Then I’ll be with her,” Caitlin said. “My mom keeps telling me I need more girlfriends.”

“Till now you’ve just had Barry,” Iris remarked.

It was an old joke of Iris and her friends from when they’d been teenagers; that if Barry wasn’t her boyfriend then that made him a girlfriend. The fact that he was a boy was irrelevant. Ignoring all the problems this view had caused, Barry managed a suitably indignant, “Hey!”

Iris gave him a friendly pout. “Admit it, Barry. You make an awesome girlfriend.”

“He does know a lot about shoes,” Caitlin agreed.

They giggled at him. Barry gave a genuine smile. It had been so long since Iris had last been able to tease him.

On the other hand, there was no reason he shouldn’t retaliate against his other so-called friends.

“Cisco, stop laughing or I’ll tell Iris all about how you and Caitlin spend Saturday nights eating ice cream and watching _Grey’s Anatomy_.”

* * *

 They had another early start, converging on the museum at seven the next morning, a full two hours before it opened. Joe and Frost met Caitlin at the side entrance while the backup SWAT team parked nearby. Cisco drove the van into the underground parking lot and started setting up. When Barry came down to see them on his way in, he was setting up a link to the museum’s systems while Iris went back over the communications training she’d been given last night. With Cisco monitoring, she’d be the one doing most of the talking over the suit links, and it looked like she’d done a great job of getting to grips with Cisco’s somewhat ramshackle ‘capcom’ setup.

“Can you hear me… Flash?” she asked.

They were in uncharted territory as far as co-operation was concerned. There were a dozen reasons the private link might end up wide open, some of them good and some of them bad. As a result, everyone had agreed not to use Barry’s name until this was all over. It was really weird.

“I can hear you, Iris,” he replied.

“Good. The system’s distorting you voice. Just like old times.”

Barry remembered those nights on the rooftop. He missed them sometimes. The Flash could open up to Iris in ways that Barry Allen never could.

“The doors are open inside,” Iris said. “You’d better get going. Good luck.”

He turned and ran upstairs, following the route he’d memorised. Even at speed, the empty museum was just as strange in the morning as it had been the night before. He came to a stop in front of the big doors to the empty hall, vibrating gently for the benefit of the two people who didn’t know who he was. Joe didn’t react. Caitlin gave him a slightly startled look, as she very rarely saw his camouflage trick. Frost looked just as curious as she had done before, but less nervous this time. The museum curator, a man in his forties who’d probably burned out most of his eyesight peering closely at paintings, stared with unabashed amazement.

“Lock up everything behind us,” Joe told the curator. “Just like it would be normally. No one’s should act any different. The other officers won’t identify themselves until it starts, but your security people should have a list of their names and faces. Anyone else, treat however you normally would.”

“Yeah. Right,” the curator replied.

“Can you take the Flash to where he’ll wait? Detective Frost, Doctor Snow and I will set up in here.” 

“Sure. Follow me, please.”

“Good luck, Flash,” Caitlin said.

The curator led him back towards the open portion of the museum. While the cops had been setting up, the museum staff had skilfully disguised a side corridor. They’d also very obligingly left Barry a chair and small table bearing some books from the gift shop. The curator pointed them all out and then rushed away to lock up. Barry wondered if he was intimidated or just afraid of making a fool of himself.

Barry sat down and did his best to mentally map the directions that the fight could take, ways he could increase his speed and ideas for what to do if he couldn’t. He wondered what Wells would say. Then, after a while, his mind began to drift and he found himself looking at the books. He’d never been very interested in art, and he hadn’t been to a gallery since high school, but some of the pictures looked interesting and even full pages probably didn’t do them justice. He considered asking Iris if she’d like to go take a proper look. Maybe Caitlin could come along too, just to be on the safe side. He knew she did a lot of reading, but he’d never actually asked if she liked art.

He became aware the museum was coming to life. Doors were being opened, more and more staff were moving through the corridors, security guards were taking their positions, sandwiches were being laid out in the café.

“Hey, man, you there?” Cisco’s asked in his ear.

“Yeah, everything okay?”

“I’m into the museum’s security feed. The place is starting to look pretty busy and it’s not even open yet. Who knew an art gallery needed so many staff?”

“Can you put me through to Caitlin?”

“Yeah, sure. Iris?”

“Hello?” Caitlin said.

“How are you?”

“Not comfortable. I don’t know how the police do this. But it turns out Ronnie and Crystal have a baseball team in common. I’m commiserating with her on his behalf.”

Barry knew just enough about baseball to remember that Keystone City’s team had been playing very well until July, when their performance had taken a sudden nosedive. He was almost certain they’d done exactly the same thing two years before. He decided not to remind Caitlin of that, and went back to artistic introspection until he heard Iris’ voice again.

“Nine o’clock. Front doors are opening.”

The trap was ready, Barry wondered how long it would be before –

“Incoming!”

He pushed his body, his mind, his senses, up as fast as they would go and sprang forward. His own movement felt so slow, like he was swimming rather than running. He reached the corridor and wanted to shout with triumph because he could see his opponent this time. The red and gold blur condensed into the familiar shape of a man, hunched over in front of the gallery doors. Barry thought he could see some sort of computer linked to the lock, but that was fuzzy too and Barry was moving so quickly, hurtling down the corridor and wondering for an instant if he could get to the man before he even got inside.

But he wasn’t fast enough. The man threw open the double doors so that Barry had to dodge around them and the yellow figure was half way across the gallery by the time he made it inside. He passed Joe and saw Frost at the far end, both of them as still as waxworks.

Frost had her gun up and was trying to get in front of the service door to force the yellow man into the conductors. Barry pushed himself faster and faster across the room, but he was still too far away as the shape reached Frost, seized her right arm and twisted it.

Then Barry hit the shape, finally feeling a blow connect, and it went backwards between the conductors. Before he could do anything, it was flickering away again, backing up and then rushing forward, striking Barry full on and driving him into the wall. There was an instant’s pause and a burst of strange, high-pitched noise in the silent world. For a second Barry thought the radio had broken, and then he realised that the other man actually speaking.

He missed the words, they went by too fast, but the next blow got the message across, slamming him into the ground at the base of the service door. The shape sprang over him and through the door. He almost went after it, but decided to hold his ground. The man might be weighed down by whatever he took, and hopefully his efforts to protect it would slow him even more.

He stood in the centre of the trap, an instant to plan his next attack, wondering what he had left against an opponent so fast and so impossibly strong. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crystal Frost on the ground with Caitlin scrambling towards her. He remembered his own fights with Oliver, the Arrow’s strategy matching his own speed.

Then he was out of time. The shape exploded out of the maintenance door towards him. It was almost hunch-backed now. Barry could see something like a backpack containing a heavy, shapeless object. He went for that as he charged.

But the other man was still too fast. He caught Barry’s arm, turned, and threw him the whole length of the room. Barry struck one of the pillars, fell four feet and crashed into the ground. For a horrible second, he lost his focus and the world sped up, then he forced it to slow again, got up and charged towards the shape as it flickered in between the plinths of the Tap.

It stopped, waiting, and Barry rushed towards it, reaching for the sound barrier in the confined space, determined to drive it back between the conductors no matter what. Or that was what it would seem, because he brought himself to a stop just short of the shape and threw his best punch.

The man in yellow caught his outstretched fist and twisted. Barry tried to escape, pulling, vibrating, and fighting the pressure as it mounted until he felt his arm would break. The empty eyes of the mask stared down at him, and the man spoke and this time Barry heard the words in the high-pitched shriek.

“This will teach you.”

The heavy hands reached out and pressed the button to activate the Tap.

He had no time to try to understand, because the yellow man wrenched him around, one of his horribly strong arms pinning Barry’s behind his back while the other fastened across his neck like a golden vice. The pain spiked and the world blurred around Barry, the museum passing in a blink, along with the city streets until they were suddenly out in the open under a bright morning sky.

The high voice screeched in his ear again, “It’s over now, Flash,” before the world titled and Barry crashed head-first into his own reflection.

* * *

 Caitlin picked herself up. She’d barely had time to register the warning before the main door had burst open and the room filled with light. She’d known from telemetry how fast Barry could move, but she’d never really seen it so close. It seemed like the crackling red blur was everywhere in the room at once.

Then something had flashed past Crystal Frost, and Caitlin heard a sickening crack as the other woman fell. Caitlin dived through the tempest to reach her. Her eyes were wide and there was cold sweat on her face.

“My arm,” she gasped.

Caitlin ripped away the damage sleeve to see an unpleasant lump on her forearm that was already turning red. “I think it’s broken,” she said.

There was another crash, a roar and for an instant Catlin thought she saw a red figure flying through the air. Then blur of motion as a stream of light swept past Joe, hurling him aside as it went. And then silence.

“Joe!” Caitlin shouted. “Joe! Iris, what happened?”

“We don’t know,” Iris responded. “Cisco’s working on it. Is my dad okay?”

“I think so,” Caitlin answered as Joe pulled himself up. “Where’s… where’s the Flash?”

“We don’t know. We’ve lost his tracker. Isn’t he with you?”

Joe stumbled over to her. “What happened?”

“We don’t know,” she replied. “But Crystal needs medical attention. Tell them her arm is probably broken, and ask them to look at your head.”

Joe pressed a palm against the long cut on his hairline and blinked at the blood. There was something off about how he was focussing. Caitlin shoved a fragment of Crystal’s sleeve at him, and he held it against his head while he supported the other detective out of the room.

That left her alone, checking the hall for any sign of her friend. Nothing. He might be outside, but then the others would find him, the only place left to check was the maintenance corridor. She peered through the open door and down the gloomy staircase.

“Flash? Flash?” She bit her lip, turned off the radio and shouted, “Barry?”

No answer. She was just debating going down to check when she felt something against her back. A chill breeze.

She turned around, and for the first time saw the bolts of blue energy dancing between the plinths of the Cold Tap. She’d seen the test run, and that was not what it was supposed to look like.

“Cisco?”

Iris came over the link. “Caitlin? Are you alright? You weren’t answering.”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell Cisco that the Tap’s been switched on.”

“What?”

Caitlin walked carefully around the perimeter of the device. “It’s definitely on. I can feel the power build-up. The temperature in the room is dropping.”

Finally, she heard Cisco’s voice. “Are you sure? That’s not supposed to… Jesus, it’s not discharging properly. Something’s causing a feedback loop. Caitlin, get out of there now!”

Iris again. “You mean it’ll overload?”

“Maybe,” Cisco told her. “We have to seal it off.”

“I can cut the power,” Caitlin said.

“No, you can’t. If you do that the containment field will collapse. All that energy has to go somewhere. Just get out before it blows!”

Caitlin wasn’t conscious of making a decision. After everything she’d experienced, and all her training before that, it just seemed the logical course of action. If you can’t do everything, do what you can. In medicine, they called it triage.

She walked over to the door and calmly pulled the fire alarm. The evacuation sirens started immediately, and the steel doors, designed to protect the rest of the museum’s precious exhibits from being damaged or destroyed, began to slide down and seal off the room.

“Caitlin! Caitlin, what the hell are you doing?”

She spoke over him. “Iris, call your dad. Make sure he clears the building.”

Iris’ reply was faint. “Okay.”

“Caitlin!”

She shook her head. “No, Cisco. You said it yourself. It’s this or another hole in Central City.”

“Caitlin, stop. I’ll come up there and shut it down myself.”

“The doors are closed, Cisco.” There were tears in her voice now. “It’s too late.”

As she spoke, the metal barrier reached the ground. She heard it thump into place. That made it easier, somehow.

Cisco, her best friend, was still arguing. “I won’t tell you how to do it, Caitlin. I won’t.”

She let out a shakey sigh, half a laugh and half a sob. “Cisco, I’ve worked right next to you for two years. I married an engineer. I know how to work an emergency override.”

She let herself cry, then. Not for herself, but for the others, for what this would do to them. She thought of all the times she could have died before: in the warehouse, the night of the explosion, in Heatwave’s trap, standing next to a bomb in Starling City. They’d all passed so quickly. This time there was time to think, but she wished there wasn’t. Her mind was a whirl, as though every emotion she should have had time to feel was bursting out of her in the moments they had left.

She focussed, wiped her eyes, and took a step towards the dancing lights. It wasn’t so hard. She took another, and the cold wind tugged at her hair.

At least she wasn’t alone. No matter how awful she’d felt over the last few years, no matter what had happened, she’d never really been alone.

“Cisco?”

“What?” she could hear him over the link, trying to be brave for her.

“Cisco, I want you to do something for me. The next time you and Barry go for karaoke, whenever that is, I want you two to sing a song for me. I want you to sing _Greased Lightning_.” 

He made a gurgling sound that was almost laughter. “What?”

“I heard you two arguing about it last time. Barry thought I would get upset because it’s rude and it’s… a private joke. But I think it’s perfect for you two, and you’d make it sound so good. So promise me you’ll do that. For me.”

Another long pause, and then a quiet, “Okay.”

The conversation had carried her all the way across the room, just like she’d hoped it would. She stood beside the power generator, listening to it grumble, watching the energy arcing inside the containment field. It was beautiful.

She had strange visions as the practical part of her mind forced its way through the chaos. She saw herself shattering like glass on the floor, and she saw what doctors have to do to jewellery in an emergency.

Removing her necklace was easy, she did that at the end of every day. Her wedding ring was harder, but she didn’t want them cutting it off, so she took hold of it and worked it slowly off her finger. It came free with a wrench that she felt in her soul. She could just see the pale mark it left. She slipped it into her pocket, where she knew someone would find it. Then she sat down next to the generator with her legs stretched out in front of her and tidied her skirt. 

She could still hear Cisco whispering into the radio, but she had one last thing to do. “Iris?”

“What is it, Caitlin?” The sound of Iris trying to hold herself together was horribly familiar.

“Has Joe cleared the building?”

“Yes. Yes, he has. Caitlin…”

“It’s alright. Can you put Cisco back on? Please?”

“Okay.”

A few deafening heartbeats passed in silence, then Cisco said, “Caitlin, please. Please don’t do this. We can figure something else out.”

She gathered herself one last time, and started saying goodbye. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Tell Ronnie… tell him I get it now. I know why he went into the Pipeline. And I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t get to be his wife for longer. Look after him, Cisco, like you looked after me. And tell Barry that he made me better too, and so did the Flash. I wouldn’t trade my time with them for anything.”

She heard the levees break, and Cisco sobbed, “I’m sorry, Caitlin. I’m sorry.”

Caitlin shook her head fiercely, as though he could see her, as though they didn’t have to do this over a radio link. “No, Cisco. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this. Cisco, don’t stop because of this. Keep building things. Keep tinkering. Keep helping the Flash. Keep eating candy at the lab.” Her mind went blank and her hand shook as she reached for the generator controls. “Keep… being Cisco.” She smiled at last, her fingers resting on the switches that would finish everything. At least she’d been given time to say this properly. “I love you, Cisco. You’re my best friend. Thank you.”

“Caitlin! Caitlin!”

She couldn’t hear him. The tears had frozen in her eyes.


	11. The Eye of the Storm

Barry broke the surface and gasped for air. A few deep, painful breaths passed. He still felt like he was moving under water, and then realised that was because he was up to his neck the lake. It took him another long moment to get his bearings and realise that he was a third of the way out, but at least he was closer to the Central side.

“Iris?” he called. “Cisco? Can you hear me?”

Nothing. He wasn’t sure how waterproof Cisco had designed the gear to be. The suit had been built for fire, not water.

Then, as he looked out towards the shore, trying to clear his head enough to navigate back to the gallery, he saw a flash like a bolt of blue-white lighting arc into the sky. It hung over the city, and then slowly started to fade, becoming less intense until it was lost in the cloudless morning blue.

There was only one place it could have come from.

Barry didn’t wait. He spun his arms and kicked his legs as hard as he could, pulling himself horizontal and then hurtling towards the shore with like a jet-powered steam-boat. In a few seconds he was almost hydroplaning, the water seeming to get thicker and thicker until he could push himself upright and run the last hundred yards onto solid ground.

He vibrated as he ran, leaving a stream of water in his wake and arriving at the museum completely dry. There was a crowd of people at the nearby junction, most of them staff but some of them early customers, chattering loudly with half of them waving their phones in the air and all trying to see past the cordon of police.

Barry circled around in an instant and saw Joe sitting on a bench while an EMT examined the cut on his head. Crystal Frost was resting on a folding gurney, weakly muttering while someone examined her broken arm. He couldn’t see the others.

Joe looked up as Barry arrived. He seemed dazed.

“Joe? What happened? Where’s Iris?”

“Something went wrong,” Joe said. “We cleared the building but Cisco and Iris went back inside.”

Barry took off towards the parking lot where they’d left the van. It was empty. He ran up into the museum proper and felt a chill in the air. He stopped, trying to see the source, and called his friends’ names. Still no answer. Then he heard a crash from the direction of the empty gallery and headed towards that. The cold got worse as he ran.

He reached the gallery entrance, where a heavy fire door had slid into place. Except the door was cold to the touch and had been reduced to the solidity of plywood, as if it had been hit by Snart’s Cold Gun. And something had smashed straight through the middle of it, leaving a jagged gap. The icy wind was blowing from inside.

Barry stepped through the hole, and into an impossible winter grotto. The door, the walls and the floor were covered in a thin layer of ice. It shone in the sunshine; the glass ceiling above them had completely gone, reduced to flakes of crystal that had settled on the floor, adding another layer of glitter to the place’s strange beauty.

Then he saw Iris, standing at the other end of the room, with her hands over her mouth. She was shaking, and he knew it wasn’t from the cold.

He wanted to run to her, but he didn’t dare, so he cautiously slipped his way across the room, grateful that Cisco had designed boots that could grip almost anything. Iris didn’t look up until he reached her. She gave a choked sob and whispered his name.

Cisco was standing next to her, hidden till now by one of the pillars. There was a fire axe in his hand with rime on the blade, but he didn’t seem to be aware of it. He didn’t seem to be aware of the cold either. His face was blank, his eyes were empty. There were tears streaming from them. He was staring at something resting against the base of the pillar.

“Caitlin?”

She might have been a statue carved out of ice. Her skin was blue-white, and there was a layer of frost shimmering over her entire body. Larger crystals rested on her face and at the top of her blouse. Her eyes were open, just like his mother’s had been, but there was no trace of pain in them. There was only sadness, determination and the last sparkle of a smile. One hand rested by her radio, the other on the ground beneath the generator controls, and Barry finally understood.

He pulled back his hood and said, “Cisco…”

Cisco turned towards him, his face writhing. The axe fell from his hand and crashed against the floor. He stepped towards Barry, half slipped, and then slammed both fists into the front of the suit hard enough to knock his friend back.

“What did you do?” He screamed, flailing at the suit. “What did you do? Something was wrong and you switched it on anyway! Why didn’t you do something? Where were you?”

Barry grabbed hold of Cisco’s shoulders, holding on to him as tightly as he could as the world spun, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.

“It wasn’t his fault, Cisco,” Iris said. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

Barry looked over at her, knowing that wasn’t true and knowing this wasn’t the time to say it. He kept his arms around Cisco, holding him up, holding them both up. Cisco’s body shook with the grief and the cold, his forehead resting against Barry’s chest, above the lightning bolt symbol of the fastest man alive who couldn’t save everyone.

A long time seemed to pass. The wind blew through the open roof, scattering the ice flakes. The air seemed to be weighing down on them all. There was a clatter in the distance, the sound of people, and Barry knew their time alone was coming to an end.

He slowly, gently let go of Cisco, leaving him to Iris’ care for a moment, and knelt down. “I’m sorry, Caitlin,” he murmured. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. But thank you. Thank you for everything you did for me, while I was in the coma and when I woke up. I couldn’t have been the Flash without you.”

The footsteps were coming closer. The wind howled in the silence.

Barry pulled off one of his gloves and carefully reached out. He was afraid what might happen if he touched her, but though her skin was as cold as snow, it was still soft, allowing him to hold her hand one last time, bowing his head to say goodbye.

And then he felt the impossible under his fingertips.

He shifted his grip, tightened it as much as he dared, waited, and felt it again. And a third time.

He scrambled forward, almost falling. “Barry, what are you doing?” Iris exclaimed.

He waved his free hand at her, desperate for silence as he pressed his ear against Caitlin’s chest, barely noticing her blouse fracturing as he did so. He made himself wait ten seconds before he was certain of it. The movement of her ribs, in and out, was almost imperceptible, but it was there. And beneath them, the faint but definite thump-thump of Caitlin Snow’s heartbeat.

“Cisco! Iris!” He looked up, and his friends were staring at him like he’d gone mad. “She’s alive!”

Cisco shook his head slowly. “No, man… no.”

“She is! I can hear her heart beating!”

“What?” Iris let go of Cisco’s hand and dropped to her knees. She pressed her head where Barry had done, flinching at the cold, and her eyes went wide. “Oh my god. Cisco, she is.”

Cisco’s legs gave out. He landed on the floor in a barely controlled heap. Iris slid over to him. Barry was about to join her when someone yelled from the doorway.

“Iris? Cisco? Caitlin?”

He barely remembered to pull his hood back up as Joe stumbled through the room with a few officers in tow. He stopped short at the sight of the huddle on the ground.

“Oh my god.”

“Joe, she’s alive,” Barry told him. “She needs a doctor.”

Joe didn’t even try to think through the apparent impossibility of that statement. He was willing to take it on faith that Barry was right.

“Somebody get the EMTs up here now! Tell them…”

He stopped and gave Barry a desperate look. This was far beyond police first aid training.

Barry took over. “Tell them twenty-eight year old female with extreme hypothermia. She’s unconscious but has a slow pulse and shallow breathing.”

Officer Bellows slithered towards the door and, watching him, Barry finally thought of something useful he could do.

“Stand back,” he ordered.

The others cleared a path and he bent down, vibrating one hand back and forth until the ice on the floor fractured into tiny flakes and scattered under the influence of the tiny, super-fast snowplough. A few seconds of work and he’d cleared a path through the frost from the door to Caitlin and then made some extra space for the cops to stand. They made an effort to keep their distance as the EMTs wheeled their gurney into the room and bent down to check over Caitlin. They barely looked up at the Flash, but couldn’t keep the confusion from their faces as they examined their patient.

“Damn,” one of them said, “I thought we were done with the weird ones.”

Caitlin looked like she should have been frozen stiff, but she moved easily enough when the EMTs lifted her onto the trolley. That caused another round of silent looks, as did Iris telling them who she was and where she worked. They surrounded her with warming pads which were only a few degrees above normal human body temperature but all they could offer at this point, and wheeled her out to an ambulance with her friends following. Iris held Cisco’s hand all the way. 

Outside, it was much darker than it should have been. A gust of wind caught Iris’ hair and nearly knocked Cisco sideways. Street debris bounced over the sidewalks from overturned bins. Barry looked up into heavy, swirling clouds that seemed to be condensing right over his head.

“What’s happening?” Iris asked.

Bellows ran over from one of the cars. He glanced from Barry to Joe and decided to pretend he was keeping to the chain of command. “Detective West, we’re getting severe weather reports from all over the city. Storm clouds and high winds, but it all just came out of nowhere.”

“It’s the Tap,” Cisco said, so quietly they barely heard him over the wind. “It discharged into the atmosphere. Caused a massive drop in air temperature. Drop in temperature caused a drop in pressure. Caused a storm.”

“This is going to get bad,” Joe muttered. “We’ll need the Flash on the streets.”

Barry looked over his shoulder at the ambulance. Caitlin would tell him there was nothing he could do, that it was time to let her profession take care of its own. Wells would say the same.

The clouds were gathering above them, heavy and low, reaching for the tops of the downtown skyscrapers. It was like the sky was falling.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m going to make sure she gets to the hospital. Iris, take the van back to STAR Labs. All the monitoring equipment should be on standby. Do you know how to use it?”

Iris nodded. “Caitlin showed me.”

Barry managed a smile and turned to the ambulance, where Joe had finished talking them into letting Cisco come along. “Hey!” he called to the driver. “Where are you going?”

“There’s a hypothermia specialist at St Peter’s! If we can get there.”

“You’ll get there,” Barry told him.

He zipped over to the back. They held the doors for him for just a moment. Cisco was hunched up on a seat in the corner.

“She’s going to be okay, Cisco,” he said. “She won’t give up on us now.”

The look Cisco gave him was indecipherable. Barry could do nothing but close the door and yell at the driver to go. Then he ran down to the van, retrieved one of the backup suit radios and was back in time to see the ambulance take off down 10th Street. It lurched as a gust of wind caught it at the junction, but kept going. Then it turned onto Cleveland Avenue and jolted as it hit the headwinds screaming down the channel of high buildings. Barry overtook it and zigzagged back and forth, recreating a trick he’d once tried on a tsunami, catching the wind before it reached the moving vehicle. The ride smoothed out and the ambulance accelerated, but it was easy enough to keep ahead of it.

As they passed 15th, a motorbike coming the other way was rocked by a gust and nearly driven sideways into their path. Barry grabbed the rider, dropped him on the sidewalk and steered the bike up next to him. He went ahead and cleared the road of half a dozen pipes that had escaped from the top of a parked truck. Then when the ambulance turned down 21st, the zigzagging trick wouldn’t work any longer so he ran around and around it, creating a moving cone of perfectly calm air in the storm crashing against the city. Finally, they reached Central Avenue, the last leg of the journey, just as hailstones started to fall. Barry snatched every one of them out of the air before they reached the vehicle’s windshield, protecting the ambulance until it was safely in the shadow of the hospital.

He skidded to a stop. There were two more ambulances in the bay, and a third one roared out into the city as he watched.

“Barry? Barry are you there?” Iris called through the radio.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I’m not getting anything from the suit. Just the radio signal.”

“That’s all we need,” Barry told her. “Where should I go?”

The darkening sky lit up for a moment. A lightning bolt slashed down towards the docks. A second later, the peal of thunder reached him.

“Never mind,” he said, and started running.

The lightning had struck a loading crane, leaving a huge metal container half in and half out of a freighter, swaying heavily in the wind. Barry retrieved the driver – terrified but safe inside the cabin’s Faraday Cage – and replaced him with a more experienced volunteer. Then he repaired the crane’s burned out motor and sealed the ruptured hydraulic lines in time for the new operator to get the load under control and bring it down safely.

“Okay,” he reported to Iris afterwards, “I’m done. Where next?”

“Umm… okay…”

“Iris, it’s alright. Take your time, I’ll make up the difference.”

“Thanks, Barry.” He heard her take a breath over the radio. “Car accident on Seventy-First and Adams.”

For the next twelve hours, as the storm roared around Central City, Barry barely stopped running.

The car accident could have been worse, no one was badly hurt. He made sure everyone was clear of the vehicles, and then sealed off the junction and repaired a damaged fire hydrant before it flooded the street.

A three-person yacht was blown out into the middle of the lake and nearly swamped trying to reach safety. Barry ran over the waves, whisked the exhausted crew onto the approaching rescue boats and then secured a tow-rope to the forecastle.

Six fires started, almost one after another, all over downtown. The buildings were all evacuated by the time the fire department arrived, and in one case the fire itself was out.

An airliner, too low on fuel to divert to Starling, was battered by the weather front as it came into McKinley Airport, almost falling short. At the last minute, the updraft from improbably localised cyclone caught hold of the plane, giving the pilots the seconds they needed to reach the runway.

As the evening came on, two neighbourhoods lost power as the pylons destabilised. Barry managed to get them reinforced before anything fell. The power company politely refused his offer of additional assistance, and managed to have the lights back on within half an hour.

Those were the few episodes he remembered afterwards. What was much more distinct was that with every call, Iris’ voice in his ear became more confident, and her relayed reports and directions became clearer. He could even hear her giggling – as much as a symptom of exhaustion as anything else – during their last job of the day. A tree had gone through the front of an electronics store and the looters had descended. Barry retrieved TVs, stereos and DVD players from the hands of their new would-be owners, put them back on the shelves and stood in front of the shattered window and suggested that the small crowd rethink their choices because the police had been called. They’d all walked away by the time the first squad car arrived.

Finally, Iris stood beside him in person once he’d stripped off the suit at the end of one of the longest and most awful days he could remember. She looked as worn and strung-out as he knew he did, exhausted by the effects of too many cups of coffee and not enough real food. They both took advantage of hot showers, and she met him in the parking lot after assuring him she was okay to drive.

“Any more news on Caitlin?” he asked, for the hundredth time that day.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Barry. There’s no change.” She took his hand. “We should go home.”

Nothing to do but wait. She’d waited nine months for him, never giving up hope.

Barry nodded and let her lead him to the car where he settled into the passenger seat. He was asleep before he knew it, and only woke up when they stopped at Big Belly Burger.

“You were great today,” he told her over an empty box of fries.

“So were you,” she said. “We do make a good team.”

“Yeah.”

Outside, the wind had blown itself out. The sky above was still a mixture of black and the sickly yellow of the city’s reflected lights. It was starting to rain again, but that was okay. Barry had seen a lot of storms in his life, and knew that however terrible they might be, they couldn’t last forever.


	12. Wait and Hope

Cisco stood in the tumult of St Peter’s ER and prayed. He whispered to God, Jesus, Holy Mary, St Peter himself, St Luke, St Joseph and St Jude. He begged, argued, bargained and raged, in English, Spanish and half-remembered Latin.

Finally, the specialist arrived. A willowy woman with honey-coloured hair and slate-grey eyes. She was pretty, as much as a working doctor can be pretty this side of a TV screen.

She didn’t break her stride as the nurses called out a familiar set of stats, and her face went flat. “Is this someone’s idea of a joke because that can’t be…” And she stopped, staring down at her patient. “Caitlin?”

“Caitlin Snow,” the nurse said. “Do you know her?”

The professional façade slipped. “We… we were at med school together. But I haven’t seen her in three years. What happened?”

The nurse nodded towards Cisco. “He came in with her.”

The doctor visibly straightened. “That can wait. What’s her core temperature?”

“Thirty-two, doctor.”

“That’s impossible. Check it again.”

“We did. Three times. So did the EMTs. Her internal temperature is thirty-two.”

Part of Cisco’s brain ran a conversion. Thirty-two Fahrenheit was zero Celsius.

“Okay, well then all our thermometers are wrong. Any arrhythmia?”

“No, doctor.”

“What?”

“Pulse faint but regular. Same with her breathing.”

“Okay, is she on warmed oxygen? Then start her on a one-ten degree saline drip. And replace these warming pads.”

“We just did, doctor.”

“Then do it again. I’m going to see if her friend can make any sense of this.”

She crossed the room in a few long strides and stood over Cisco. He stood up, and she was still comfortably taller than him. She pulled back her mask, and the thin line her mouth was pressed into reminded him irresistibly of his friend.

“I’m Doctor Louise Lincoln,” she said. “You’re Caitlin’s friend?”

“We work together,” Cisco told her. “At STAR Labs.”

“STAR Labs?” Doctor Lincoln repeated, and Cisco really hadn’t missed that reaction to his job.  

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“What happened to her?”

He tried to answer, but he didn’t know what to say. That he’d happily sat down and built a machine that was capable of wiping out a city block if not handled with care, that they’d been using it to try and catch a man who could outrun even the Flash, that something had gone so terribly wrong that his monitoring equipment hadn’t even noticed, that she’d done what to her was the only sensible thing and saved a few hundred people from his bad design, that he’d listened to her say goodbye, and that the fact that she was alive was crushing his heart because he knew why and that was the worst thing of all.

“I…” he stammered, “I…”

Behind them, some horrible, harsh machine screeched a warning. It was followed closely by the nurse. “Doctor Lincoln!”

The woman pulled her mask back up and hurried back the way she’d come. She looked down at Caitlin and Cisco saw her eyes go wide. “What the hell? Shut off the drip. Call a surgeon and get me something to use as tourniquet.”

One of the nurses pulled the curtains around the bed closed. He glanced at Cisco, and he looked scared. Cisco sank back into the chair, his head in his hands.

* * *

 Outside, the storm raged. Cisco listened to the wind against the windows, then the rain, then the hail. Central City was taking a beating again, but that was okay, it would survive. The Flash would look after it. He wondered if he should help, but Barry had Iris and Joe, and Caitlin might need him. So he sat and listened as the hours passed, and new patients came and went, trolleys shuffled through the ER like cards in a pack. At some point he realised that they’d probably moved Caitlin too, but he didn’t know where they’d taken her, and getting up was too much for him right now.

He was wondering how it had got to be four in the afternoon so suddenly, when he realised someone was standing over him. He blinked. Doctor Lincoln had changed into a set of fresh scrubs, but her face and eyes were worn.

“They told me you were still here,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your name.”

“Cisco.”

“You should go home, Cisco.”

Cisco managed a snort, gesturing to the dark afternoon roaring outside the main doors. “Out there?”

“Then you should eat something.”

He stood, and pain speared through his back and legs. It took him a moment to make it upright.

“Can I see Caitlin?” he asked, not certain what he wanted the answer to be.

Doctor Lincoln’s lips thinned again. “We’re still running tests. I’ll see if it’s possible after we’ve had something to eat.”

Cisco trailed after her to the hospital café. He bought a candy bar and a packet of chips. Doctor Lincoln sat and watched him eat one slow bite at a time. Slowly, he became aware that he was hungry, so he had another bag and a battered apple because the doctor was still watching him.

She ate her own sandwich while he was on his second course. “Caitlin was so excited when she got her place at STAR Labs,” she said quietly. “We promised we’d meet up regularly, since we were both coming to a new city, but then I had night shifts and Caitlin always did work long hours. We saw each other a few times, but she made friends at the lab and I met people here. The last time I really spoke to her, she mentioned she was going to get married. And then the accident happened, and I kept wanting to call her, but I never knew what to say.”

Cisco didn’t say anything. He couldn’t remember Caitlin ever mentioning her friend Louise, but then when he’d met Caitlin she’d been devoting what little time she spared herself outside the lab to Ronnie. And afterwards he’d never really asked her about her life before STAR Labs. He’d wanted to, but he’d spent a year trying to walk Caitlin back to the woman she’d been before it had all blown up in their faces and he didn’t want to remind her of that old life before she was ready.

But she had survived. He grabbed at that thought and clung to it. She’d made it through every horrible thing that life and Wells and the accelerator had thrown at her, and she’d still been Caitlin.

“Can I see her?” he asked again, and meant it this time.

Doctor Lincoln sighed, finished her drink, and led the way. She had a room, just her and half a dozen monitors. Her skin was still impossibly pale, but her eyes were closed now. Perhaps he could make believe she was just sleeping. There was a nasal cannula running across her face, and her right arm was covered in pads and bandages.

“What happened to her arm?”

“The warming saline solution we gave her nearly froze in her bloodstream,” Doctor Lincoln told him. “We had to cut it out before it ruptured any major blood vessels. I’ve never seen anything like it. What could do that to someone?”

“A machine designed to pull the kinetic energy out an object’s molecules,” Cisco said flatly “Rapidly lowering the temperature by decreasing their vibration.”

“Why do you think that?”

Cisco looked into her eyes, so she’d know it wasn’t a mistake, and told her, “Because I built it.”

He could tell she wanted to ask more questions, but also that she didn’t want to know the answers. So she took a sidestep back into the medicine she understood.

“There’s no sign of frostbite or irregular heartbeat. I’ve ordered every test that I can, but they’ll take time. You should go home, Cisco. She’ll be monitored as closely as possible, and the staff have my number if anything changes.”

She was going to leave, he realised. He wanted to demand how she could even think of doing that. Then he remembered a long time ago Iris had shouted the same thing at Caitlin during one of their earliest days with Barry. Caitlin hadn’t answered, but Joe had. He’d told Iris, quietly but firmly, that the hardest part of being a doctor wasn’t coming in to treat your patients, but letting go and heading home to heal yourself at the end of the day.

“Thank you, doctor,” Cisco said.

“You can call me Louise,” she replied, with a smile that took years from her. 

“Okay, Louise. Just… it’s cold in here. Can you turn up the heating or something?”

“I’ll speak to the nurses.”

“Thanks.”

Cisco looked down at his friend. She did look like she was just sleeping. Waiting. But he wasn’t Ronnie, and he certainly wasn’t Prince Charming, so he bent over and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, like his mother had done when she’d put him to bed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Caitlin,” he promised her, and then left the room with the taste of ice tingling on his lips.

* * *

 He dreamed of her that night, only it wasn’t the Caitlin he knew. It was someone else, with Caitlin’s face, but with tumbling blonde hair and eyes that burned like a winter sunrise, who reached for him with talons of glittering crystal as he felt his blood begin freeze.

In the instant before he opened his eyes, he almost knew her name.

Then the dream fled, and it left the waking truth twisting in his gut. It was five in the morning, but once his breath stopped coming in gasps and his heart began to slow, he knew he’d never get back to sleep. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

The wind was dying out, but the morning clouds were pitch black and rain fell like it never wanted to stop. Cisco observed this, felt it soaking his hair on the way to his car, but didn’t really mind. He didn’t think he’d be minding much today. He felt empty.

The hospital was still busy. People were still tricking in for help with the consequences of the storm. He was almost surprised to see that they’d been joined by prospective patients paying for their misbehaviour on a normal Friday night out. Cisco saw a couple of cops calmly discussing their summer vacations while waiting for a doctor to certify an injured suspect healthy enough to be taken into custody.

An hour later, Doctor Lincoln found him in the hospital chapel. It was quieter there. He’d run out of things to ask or even confess, and was sitting in silence. In his head, he was talking. To Caitlin, to Wells, to Dante, to Barry, to Joe, to Iris, to Ronnie. He was trying to imagine every single alternative of what would happened when he told them the truth, that way he’d be ready to deal with it. It wasn’t helping though, his brain was caught in a loop and every time it went round things got a little worse.

“There’s no change,” Doctor Lincoln told him. “I’m going to try to design a treatment plan for her. I don’t think we can risk a thoracic wash in case it freezes like the saline did, but it might be possible to pump her blood out using a bypass machine, warm it and then return it to her body.”

“Would that work?”

The doctor shrugged. “To be honest, Cisco, I don’t know. We have the facilities, and it is a treatment we use, but Caitlin’s case is so extraordinary…”

The irony nearly choked him. Central City’s foremost expert on impossible medical phenomenon was now a case study herself, and no one knew how to treat her.

Doctor Lincoln took another breath, and he knew what was coming. “You should contact her next of kin. And her parents.”

“Why?”

“Forgetting about everything else, Caitlin’s body is some sort of cryogenic state. But it is functioning. Her metabolism and brain activity are very low, but they are registering. And her heart is beating.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that this activity needs fuel. Her heart, her lungs and her brain all need glucose to function and I’m not sure if it’s possible for her to convert her own reserves in this condition. Under normal circumstances, we’d just give her intravenous glucose solution.”

“But it’ll freeze if you do.”

“Yes. Cisco, we have to find a way to get Caitlin’s body temperature up, if only by a few degrees, within the next twenty-four hours or there is a real risk she could suffer organ failure.”

Cisco’s head bent until it rested against the wood of the pew in front. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked eventually.

“Because if you know anything, anything at all, that can help her, I’m willing to listen.”

“No,” Cisco whispered. “I can’t help.”

She nodded. “Okay, but the offer is still open. I’ve spoken to the nurses, and they’ll know how to reach me.”

She left him there, and eventually the staff let him see Caitlin. She was just the same as yesterday, impossibly pale, silent and still. Her bandages had been changed and she’d been given thick, warmed bedding. It wasn’t enough, just looking at her made him shiver.

He sat in the chilly morning, thinking of Iris’ visits to Barry, knowing he should talk to her but not knowing what to say. So he sat, with his head in his hands, waiting, until he heard the door open and Barry shuffled awkwardly into the room with Iris behind him.

Barry put his hand on Cisco’s shoulder. “Hey. How is she?”

He couldn’t even answer that question. All he could do was shake his head and hope they got the message.

“I’ve been trying to contact Rip,” Barry said.

“Ronnie should be here,” Cisco muttered. He didn’t say why.

Iris touched Caitlin’s hand. She flinched. “Sorry. She’s just… so cold. Do the doctor’s know how…?”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t say the truth: that Caitlin should be dead.

“No,” Cisco said. “But I do.”

Barry and Iris stared down at him. “You do?”

Cisco nodded. Fear, unfelt until now, reared up inside him. But it was time for his confession.

“She’s a metahuman.”

Neither of them spoke. They both looked back and forth between him and Caitlin.

“The night the accelerator blew, when Ronnie… she was right outside the Pipeline next to me.”

“How can you be sure?” Iris asked.

He could just have waved at the woman on the bed, but he had more truth to tell. “Because I’m one too.”

“What?” Barry shook his head. “No.”

“My dreams. The ones about the day that you rewrote. They weren’t just a coincidence. They were because the accelerator did something to me. I can see… he said I can see through the vibrations of the universe.”

“Wells told you?”

“Yeah. He said he was sorry.”

The tears came, at long last. Everything he’d been holding in since that terrible day. All those times he’d wanted to tell them. All those times he’d wanted to ask Barry what to do. All those times he’d tried to convince himself that Wells was a liar, and all the times he’d failed. For years, it had been an article of faith that Wells was always right, and now that tore at him too.

Wells had been from the future. Wells had changed the present. Wells said Cisco had a great and noble destiny. Had Wells known about Caitlin too?

He was leaning against them both, Barry on one shoulder, Iris on the other. Slowly, he realised he was hearing sobs that weren’t his own.

“I’m sorry, man,” Barry whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Iris murmured, holding both of them. “It’s okay.”

Slowly, Cisco pushed himself upright so he could look into Barry’s tear-stained eyes. “It’s okay, Barry. I’m sorry about what I said. It’s not your fault.”

Barry straightened up, wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. There was an expression on his face that Cisco couldn’t identify. Even Iris, still half way between them, seemed off balance.

“Cisco,” Barry said, “what happened yesterday wasn’t an accident. I was fighting the man in yellow… and he knocked me down… and while I was down I think he did something to the Tap… and then, when he grabbed my wrist, he turned it on himself. He said ‘this will teach you’.”

Cisco stared into his friend’s eyes. He could feel something now. Something clawing its way out of the depths of his soul. Something alien and terrible that wasn’t Cisco Ramon at all.

“ _He did this_?”

He was shaking. He felt like he might shake apart. He wanted awful things. He wanted to hunt the bastard down and drive an icicle through his heart. He wanted to sabotage that accelerator suit and leave him stranded at a thousand times normal speed, living his entire life alone in the space of a heartbeat. He wanted violence, he wanted revenge, he wanted to hurt and destroy.

“Cisco? Cisco?”

He saw their faces. It was like they were looking at a stranger. Barry even looked frightened.

The rage filled his veins with acid. He wanted to scream at Barry for not being fast enough, at Iris for keeping him in the van, at Ronnie for being wherever the hell Ronnie was, at Caitlin for being so goddamn noble. It twisted inside him, a dagger through his soul, and he wanted to vomit because it hurt so much.

He somehow managed to take a breath, a long, choked sob, and crumpled up on the seat. Barry and Iris held on to him. They weren’t going to let him go. He clung to them, fighting the pictures crowding his mind, desperately looking for somewhere calm inside, somewhere he could still be Cisco. He didn’t want to get lost in the dark.

Wells whispered to him. Eobard Thawne knew about hate. He knew how to use it. The Reverse Flash had hated Barry Allen, but he’d used that hate to shape his enemy’s life, to build a particle accelerator, to pull a thousand strings for fifteen years to put a young man under a lightning bolt.

Cisco didn’t want to hate. He knew where that led. To Mardon and to Danton Black and to the burning red eyes of the man in yellow. Cisco Ramon, metahuman vigilante, taking his anger out on the rest of the world. Dead or locked in the prison he’d built.

No. That wasn’t him. It could be, he knew, but he wasn’t going to let it. He just wanted to help. He’d always cared so much about people. Just like Caitlin. But her job demanded that she detach sometimes. And in a moment of clarity, he realised that if he wanted to help her, he had to learn from her. Stop thinking about Caitlin and think about the physical system she represented.

Barry was still holding on to him. That gave him an anchor. Remember how you treated Barry. When he’d been brought in, his symptoms hadn’t made any sense either. Everything the doctors had done just made things worse, because they’d assumed that his body was failing when in fact it was the complete opposite. Wells had speculated – or Wells had known – that it was full of energy, and the coma was just the body’s way of coping while it adapted. And when equilibrium was reached, Barry had woken up.

Now apply those lessons here. How had the equilibrium of this system changed?

He shivered, looked up, and wiped the tears out of his eyes.  

“Are you okay?” Barry asked, trying to smile. “I thought we lost you there.”

Cisco blinked. “I think you almost did.”

He got up, very slowly and walked over to Caitlin. He felt drained again, exhausted, but there was purpose burning, faint but firm, inside him. He pressed a hand to her forehead. It was still as cold as it had been yesterday.

“Iris…” he said, “Are the heaters switched on?”

Iris gave him a questioning look and waved her hand over the air conditioner. “Yeah. Weird, it’s really cold in here.”

The words were balm to his soul.

“I… umm… I need to go talk to her doctor,” he said.

Barry nodded. “Sure. We’ll come with you.”

“It’s alright. She knows me. Can you stay here with Caitlin?”

“Sure,” Iris said.

It took him a few minutes to persuade one of the nurses to take him to Doctor Lincoln’s office. It didn’t seem like they agreed with her willingness to take suggestions. She was on the phone when he arrived so he stood quietly, ideas bubbling away, until she hung up.

“That was the cardiology department,” she explained. “They can loan us a bypass machine, but not for another six hours.”

“We don’t need it,” Cisco told her. He took a breath. “Okay, I’m going to need you to trust me. And please don’t tell me this is impossible until after I’m done, alright?”

Doctor Lincoln gave him a slow nod.

“You’ve been trying to warm her up, right? Because that’s how you treat hypothermia. Push the body temperature back towards normal and it’ll correct itself? I don’t think that’s going to work anymore. Whatever happened to her, it changed her thermal balance. She isn’t giving out heat, she’s pulling it in. It’s like she’s become a heat sink.”

“I can’t believe that,” Doctor Lincoln interrupted, finding a way around her promise.

“Do you believe in the Flash?” Cisco responded. “I saw him run up the side of a building once, catch a guy and then run down again. And Caitlin’s room has had the heater’s on all night just like you asked, but it’s still cold in there. Her body hasn’t got any warmer. You leave anything in a warm room for twelve hours and it’s got to heat up a bit, hasn’t it?”

Doctor Lincoln gave him a look that was so much like one of Caitlin’s it hurt. “Alright, assuming you’re correct, what do we do?”

“We need every space heater this place can spare. If we can give her heat faster than she can lose it then we can raise her temperature enough to put her on an IV.”

“And what then?”

“Then I’ll think of something else. Come on, Louise, you said we’ve got to wait six hours for a bypass machine. If this won’t work in six hours it won’t work at all. Just let me try it.”

Louise Lincoln sighed. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

It took an hour to collect the heaters, but Doctor Lincoln could be very persuasive, and Cisco had no qualms about deploying Barry’s kicked-puppy charm against anyone putting up resistance. In the end, they had six, but had to make do with five as one of the extension cables was too short. They weren’t focussed enough either, and the room could be sealed better, but this would have to do. He arranged them as best he could around the bed and pulled the covers and warming pads away. Doctor Lincoln, Barry and Iris waited in silence as he whispered a final, desperate plea into Caitlin’s ear and switched the heaters to full.

The temperature started rising almost immediately. Iris shed her coat and Barry tugged off his sweater. It climbed higher and higher, from ‘warm’ to ‘uncomfortable’ to ‘hot’.

And then, just as Cisco felt a sheen of sweat forming on his face, the thermometer flickered, and Caitlin’s body temperature rose by a single, glorious degree.

“I don’t believe it,” Doctor Lincoln whispered.

“Come on, Caitlin,” Cisco hissed. “Come on.”

“Is that enough?” Iris asked.

Barry shook his head. “No. It probably needs to be up past forty at least.”

And as the minutes passed, Caitlin’s temperature kept climbing. Quickly at first, but then more sluggishly once it past thirty-eight. Every time it gathered another degree, Cisco glanced at Doctor Lincoln, and each time she gave a minute shake of her head. Not yet.

“It’s too inefficient,” Cisco muttered to Barry. “She’s probably got all the heat she needs but she can only take it in so fast…”

Finally, as the readout crawled past 42 Fahrenheit, Lincoln exclaimed, “To hell with it, that’ll do.” She pulled open the room’s door and called, “I need a glucose IV, stat!” Then she closed the door again before too much of the precious heat could escape. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave now. We have a lot of tests to run.”

In the corridor outside, the heavy hospital air seemed pleasantly cool. Cisco caught Doctor Lincoln’s sleeve before she headed off after the nurses.

“If I wanted to bring her some stuff from home, would that be okay?”

Doctor Lincoln smiled. “Yes, of course. And… thank you, Cisco.”

Barry patted his arm gently. “Yeah. That was great, man. You know if you want to stay here, I can run over to Caitlin’s place…”

Cisco shook his head. “Thanks, Barry. But… I kinda want to do this myself. You should go home. You both look kinda beat. I guess you must’ve had a busy day yesterday.”

“It really was,” Barry said. “I’d tell you all about it but… to be honest, it’s kind of a blur.”

“If you need anything,” Iris said, “just call us, okay?”

“Okay.”

The rain had finally stopped as he drove across the city to Caitlin’s little apartment. It was as clean and neat as the last time he’d been there. He made his way around carefully, she wouldn’t be happy if he made a mess. He grabbed two pairs of pyjamas, some slippers and a few recognisable toiletries. She didn’t have many pictures – all the photos of her and Ronnie had vanished after the accident and she hadn’t been given the chance to put together some new ones – but he found a good one from the summer of her with him and Barry that Iris had taken. Finally, after five minutes of searching, he found her Kindle under one of her pillows.

He stopped for brunch on the way back to the hospital and stocked up on candy that he knew wouldn’t melt. He spent the whole journey back trying not to think of her sitting up and waiting for him. She wasn’t. She was as still and pale as she’d been before. Her temperature had stabilised at 44. Her heartbeat was slow, but the peaks on the monitor seemed higher and firmer.

He set the picture up beside the bed, so that no matter what happened, she’d wake up knowing her friends were waiting for her. Then he settled on the opposite side of the room and flipped the Kindle open. He’d been worried, but despite the author’s name, the book was in English. It didn’t even matter that she was just over thirty chapters into it. 

“ _Near the beginning of the year 1838, two young men belonging to fashionable Parisian society, Viscount Albert de Morcerf and Baron Franz d’Epinay, found themselves in Florence…_ ”

He stumbled at first, but slowly gained confidence as he read Caitlin the story of these two young aristocrats and their encounter with an impossible stranger. And all the while he hoped that, somewhere out there, she would hear his voice and find her way home.


	13. Deep Roots

Sometimes Barry thought that the hardest part about seeing and doing all these amazing things was coming into work the next day and pretending he hadn’t. The Flash could stop a derailing train, fight Captain Cold and thwart a rogue metahuman, but Barry Allen just had to walk into the station and listen to the gossip of the officers who’d been on the scene and made the arrests afterwards.

And then there was the other side of the coin. He knew that when Joe had started on the streets, if a cop had a bad day he went out drinking with his buddies, and only guarded by a shield of alcohol could he confess that he’d been hurt or scared. But those days were long gone, and now the force offered counselling, and made very sure that you went on it. Over the years it had probably saved a lot of jobs and marriages, and probably livers too.

So who does a superhero talk to when the job he got given by a bolt of lightning starts feeling like it’s getting too much?

The image of lying on a shrink’s couch in his suit could still make him laugh to himself, but it was getting harder. The truth was, there was so much he’d been wanting to talk about, for months; ever since the day he’d watched his mother die for the second time and the world had fallen apart all over again.

Now Caitlin was in a coma, Cisco thought they might both be metahumans, Joe was doing his best to cover for his injured partner and even Captain Singh had spent three days arguing that trying to work with the Flash had not been a catastrophic mistake. In the middle of this, Barry felt like he should just forget about his own little problems and fears until things got better. But that was how all this had started – putting aside his own pain so he could help Iris deal with hers – and he was starting to wonder how much he could take.

So he took a leaf out of Caitlin’s book and went to work. There were plenty of crimes all over Central City that didn’t bring back bad memories. He ran tyre-track analyses, compared images of footprints, cross-referenced fibre samples. All of it circling the big heavy casefile sitting in the middle of his life that he sometimes wished could just be someone else’s problem.

It was small comfort that he wasn’t the only one hiding in work. Cisco had spent the last four days in Caitlin’s room with two of STAR Labs’ heavy-duty laptops. He’d alternate between talking to Caitlin, reading to her and working on his project. All while sweating in the heat and drinking bottle after bottle of water to make up for it. Barry knew for certain that the only reason he ever went home was some sort of agreement with Caitlin’s doctor and the need to shower and put on a fresh shirt.

“You aren’t… using her to cool those things are you?” Barry asked on Wednesday afternoon, gesturing to the laptops.

Cisco didn’t answer. He was sucking intensely on a lollipop, staring at the computer screen. “Almost,” he murmured.

“Almost what?” Barry asked.

“I’ve almost got it,” Cisco told him. “The Cold Tap did this, and the Cold Tap can fix it. Well… sorta. If I can rig something to pull the heat out of the air at a high enough rate, it can push Caitlin’s body temperature back up.”

“How high does it need to go?”

Cisco shrugged. “I don’t know. Doctor Lincoln doesn’t like guessing, but based on Caitlin’s reaction to this heat… maybe sixty.”

“Sixty?” Barry repeated. “That’s just over half what it should be.”

“I know, man, I know,” Cisco responded. “When Caitlin wakes up you can ask her to explain it.”

“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

Cisco slumped in the chair. “Lend me your speed for an hour.”

“If I could, Cisco, you know I would.”

“Thanks, man.”

“But since I can’t, maybe you ought to go home and rest.”

Cisco pulled himself up. “Maybe. But I just want to finish this chapter first.”

Barry retrieved the Kindle. He’d stayed out of the room when Cisco was reading, he didn’t want to embarrass his friend, and it felt too much like was intruding on something intimate. As a result, he had only caught snatches of the content. Something about a carnival in Rome and a long, rambling story about Italian bandits that didn’t really seem to go anywhere. 

“What is this, anyway?” he asked.

“ _The Count of Monte Cristo_ ,” Cisco said.

Barry’s memories from high school kicked a bit, but that was all. “Isn’t that about prison break?”

Cisco nodded. “Sorta. I saw one of the movie versions once. This guy gets stuck on an island prison for years, but then escapes and finds a load of treasure, so he goes back home and assumes a new identity to get revenge on the people who set him up.”

“So… how does it end?” a familiar voice chirped.

Felicity Smoak was standing in the doorway, with Oliver Queen just behind her.

“What are you guys doing here?” Barry exclaimed.

“Dude, close the door!” Cisco said. “You’re letting the heat out.”

Felicity crossed the room and slipped her arms around Barry’s neck. “Joe called. He told us what happened. I’m so sorry, Barry.”

“How is she?” Oliver asked.

“She’s stable,” Cisco said. “Her body temperature’s really low. I’m trying to work out a way to warm her up.”

Felicity let Barry go and walked over to the bed. “Joe said there was an accident with some kind of thermal tap. How did this happen?”

“We think…” Barry braced himself. “It’s possible she was affected by the particle accelerator explosion and didn’t know it until now.”

“Well, thank god,” Felicity muttered.

“What?” Cisco exclaimed.

“Well, if she hadn’t been, it probably would have killed her, right?” Felicity responded. “She might be a metahuman, but at least she’s alive.”

The silent standoff continued for a moment, before Oliver quietly interrupted. “Is there anything we can do?”

“I don’t know,” Barry answered. “How long are you guys in town for?”

“A few days,” Oliver told him. “Things are getting complicated again.”

 Barry nodded. “Okay, well, yeah, there is something, actually. It’s my day off tomorrow. Could you guys come by STAR Labs in the morning?”

“Of course.”

“Great. I’ve got to get back to the lab. You guys have a good evening. Felicity knows some great places to eat. You should see the sights. Catch a movie. Please don’t shoot anyone.”

Oliver actually smiled. “I promise.”

Barry ushered them out of the room, and they left Cisco alone. Looking at Felicity, he could tell this was bringing back bad memories. Barry did his best to distract her by offering suggestions for points of interest which he knew for certain weren’t owned and operated by the mob. Then he ran back to the lab to finish off his work for the day.

When it was done and he was officially off the clock, he opened the robbery casefile for the first time in days. A few clicks, and the blank eyes of the new man in yellow stared back at him. He’d told Barry it was over. It wasn’t.

* * *

Iris insisted on coming with him the next morning. He didn’t resist too hard. He felt a little bad asking Felicity to take on analytical duties while Cisco had his mind focussed on other things, and hoped that he could at least offer her some female company.

Oliver and Felicity were waiting for him outside the building. He gave Iris a proper introduction this time. She exchanged a hug with Felicity and a slightly awkward handshake with Oliver.

“Would you be interested in doing an interview with me while you’re in town… Oliver?” she asked. “I’m still trying to get my editor to let me write about things other than the Flash, and that’s gotten a little weird lately.”

“I’m not sure I’d be very interesting to the people in Central City,” Oliver replied.

“You’re kidding, right? Your family? Your disappearance? But I promise I’ll leave you anything that might suggest you’re the Arrow.”

Oliver gave Barry a look that was normally followed by a sharp object at high speed. Barry glanced over his shoulder and raised his hands in defence. “I swear I didn’t tell her.”

“Please,” Iris cut in. “He didn’t have to. Mild-mannered CSI Barry Allen somehow manages to make friends with Starling City’s most mysterious favourite son during a weird case that he still won’t tell me about, by the way. Meanwhile, the Flash gets the Arrow on speed-dial and since the Arrow doesn’t exactly do teamwork, I didn’t think they ran into each other at the laundromat.”

“Did I mention how smart she was?” Barry asked.

Oliver sighed. “You can pick a topic, Iris.”

“I am actually glad I found out about you,” Iris went on, “because that means I get to thank you. A year ago when the Flash… wasn’t himself, you distracted him until he could be cured. You… you stopped two people I love from hurting each other. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Iris,” Oliver said softly.

“I guess… um… people don’t say thank you to the Arrow very much.”

“No,” Felicity answered. “It’s… it’s rare.”

Barry stepped on a candy wrapper. That gave him a few seconds’ warning before the lab doors opened and they almost walked over Cisco, who was adding his portable computers to the normal Cortex setup.

“Hey guys.” He sprang to his feet. “I think I’ve got the design sorted out, but I needed some extra power for the details. I’m sorry about yesterday. I hadn’t had any sugar in like a whole hour and –”

“Cisco,” Barry interrupted gently, “it’s okay, man.”

Felicity gave Cisco the same kind of hug she’d given Barry. He whispered something to her. She nodded and smiled as she let him go.

“You don’t have to apologise,” she said lightly. “You should see how Oliver gets when he’s worried and won’t admit it.”

“What are you working on?” Iris asked. “Something for Caitlin?”

Cisco blinked several times and then nodded. “Yeah. It’s a special suit. Like the Tap, in reverse. Conductors pull the ambient heat out of the air and transfer it to radiators which pump it into Caitlin’s core. Using the nanotech I can slim it all down as much as possible, but the problem is the control. I included sensors like the ones in Barry’s suit to watch her vitals, but getting them to regulate the output is going to take time.”

Felicity looked thoughtfully at the design on the screen. “What if you weave nanoprocessors into the design so the entire suit becomes one big computer core? Then you’d have enough power to support a monitoring program that could learn as it goes once we work out the new parameters for Caitlin’s thermal output.”

“Yeah! Yeah, that’d work!”

Barry smiled along with them, and then turned to the others. Iris’ smile had become a little strained and Oliver’s expression was completely flat.

“It’s like a thermostat,” he explained. “The system needs to be smart enough think about how much heat Caitlin needs and how much there is available so it can adjust what it’s pulling in and putting out.”

“We should probably leave them to it, then,” Iris said.

Barry nodded. “Sure. You guys yell if you need anything.”

He got a vague wave from Cisco in reply. He, Iris and Oliver left the room. He wasn’t certain that the other two noticed.

“What did you want to ask me, Barry?” Oliver said.

Barry was silent for a moment. He’d thought having Iris here would make this easier, because he felt like he shouldn’t be hiding it, but her curious look just made things worse.

“This guy… this other man in yellow… he’s fast. Faster than I am. And he’s strong too. I… I need you to teach me how to fight a guy like that.”

He was so grateful to Iris that she didn’t ask why. Oliver did, but he could live with that.

“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never wanted to hurt anyone, Barry.”

“I know. And I don’t. But this guy’s stolen a lot of money and he’s hurt people. Joe’s not going to stop looking for him and neither am I. When we catch him, I need to be able to stop him. If I can’t be as fast as him, then I need to be smarter. You taught me that.”

“Alright, Barry. But we’ll need to do this properly. And slowly. I’ll need as much information as you can give me about your own fighting style and your opponent’s.”

Barry nodded. “Okay, sure.”

It felt weird using Caitlin’s lab, and Barry had moved the battered remains of the Cold Tap into Cisco’s, so he chose one of the empty rooms, gave it a quick clean and then set up some mats they’d obtained for one of Wells’ innumerable training exercises. Then he ran to the local gym, borrowed some boxing gloves, pads and helmets for himself and Iris.

“Thanks for helping,” he said as she put the pads over her hands.

Iris smiled. “Barry, it’s fine.” She turned to Oliver. “He hits like a girl.”

Barry ignored that, put the gloves on, and threw a few punches at normal speed. It was hard to tell if Oliver was unimpressed or if the lack of expression just meant he was thinking. Then Barry slowly recounted his skirmishes with the other speedster. He found a box for Iris to stand on to reproduce the height difference and she acted out the yellow man’s moves. Oliver watched most of it in silence, only speaking to ask technical questions.

“Your technique is sloppy,” Oliver said afterwards, “you need to work on your stance and your basic punches, but that can wait for now. I’ll show you a few simple strikes, but you will actually need to practice these and make sure you’re comfortable using them at speed.” He stepped forward. “Iris, would you mind trying to hit me?”

Iris grinned. “Okay, sure. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Just don’t hurt him,” Barry called.

Working on the assumption that the other speedster was physically strong but only trained in traditional boxing, Oliver demonstrated several simple moves with the heel of his hand, aimed at deflecting an incoming blow and then striking the wrist, the elbow or the shoulder of the attacker. After that, and a little more thought, he showed them a basic kick to the ankle or knee.

Then, the rest of the day was spent with wax-on, wax-off repetition of boxing techniques and the new moves, running through them over and over again until Oliver was satisfied. It took a lot to satisfy him.

After what felt like forever, and the tenth reminder that if Barry thought that was hard, he should try learning martial arts on an island full of trained killers, Felicity came in with news that Cisco’s idea was ready for a demonstration.

Iris rolled her shoulders. “Great. Oliver, that was a lot of fun. We should do it again some time.”

“He is seeing someone,” Felicity muttered, and then flinched. “Oh god, did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah,” Barry said. “Sorry.”

The sight in the main lab was odd even by their standards. The end result of Cisco’s developments looked like a black pullover that he was in the process of putting onto a watermelon he’d balanced on a stool. The ‘arms’ – the parts containing the conductors – were then draped over some supporting sticks and arranged to reach out towards a small wall of space heaters.

“Okay…” Cisco announced, “heaters on, program running, switching conductors to twenty-five percent…”

For a long moment, nothing much changed, but then Felicity started smiling. “Core temperature rising,” she reported. “Two degrees. Four. Seven. It’s working, Cisco!”

“Okay…” Cisco grinned. “Let’s see what this thing can do. Conductors to full.”

“Cisco, I don’t think that’s a good –”

The watermelon exploded.

The black suit absorbed most of the blast, but a few fragments a stream of juice shot up into the air and then came down next to Felicity. The remainder of the fruit collapsed into a formless heap, which dripped despondently onto the lab floor.

“Umm… okay… that’s a higher exchange efficiency than I was expecting.”

“Maybe we should install some kind of capacitor,” Felicity suggested. “That could hold the excess heat for later on.”

Another hour of work, programming and cleaning, and Barry reluctantly delivered a second watermelon to take its place in the history of circumventing the Laws of Thermodynamics. This time, Cisco kept the heat rising smoothly and steadily, even with the conductors below fifty percent. Then he had a long phone conversation  with Doctor Lincoln, convincing her that the only way to know for sure if this would work was to test it on Caitlin herself.

Barry was never certain how Cisco won the argument, but he did. They all arrived at the hospital late and were let in by Doctor Lincoln herself, whose reluctance only seemed to be increased by the number of visitors. For the sake of Caitlin’s privacy, she agreed to let Felicity set up the conductor suit, and it said a lot about Cisco’s state of mind that he hadn’t thought of a name for it yet. Which left the others standing quietly in the corridor again.

“Caitlin’s going to be so impressed when you tell her about this,” Iris told Cisco.

Cisco shrugged and tried a smile. “More likely she’ll complain she’ll never be able to wear that under one of her dresses.”

While Iris distracted Cisco with her input on Caitlin’s fashion sense, Oliver leaned against the wall next to Barry. “You know you couldn’t stop them helping you, even if you wanted to,” he said.

Barry nodded. “Yeah, I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“No, it doesn’t. Barry, I tried so hard to stop the people I loved from getting involved in the life I’d chosen because I knew they’d get hurt. It took me a very long time to realise that they helped me because they didn’t want someone they loved getting hurt either.”

Barry could feel the tears in his eyes. “So what do you do when they get hurt anyway?”

“You remember you didn’t hurt them. You remember what they fought for, and you honour that. Remember they make you stronger, not weaker. So you can keep fighting until the fight is done.”

“Thank you, Oliver,” Barry said.

“Don’t thank me,” Oliver replied. “I learned that from you.”

The door to Caitlin’s room opened and Felicity said, “Okay, we’re ready.”

They all crowded in. Doctor Lincoln still seemed unhappy, but not so much that she’d ask them to leave. Barry couldn’t help but wonder if they were all prepared to surrender their own body heat to restore Caitlin’s.

Caitlin herself had the black conductor vest pulled over her gown so that it reached most of the way down her abdomen. The sleeves were a little shorter than they needed to be, exposing her blue-white wrists. Felicity had set up the laptop on a small table between herself and Cisco, facing away so Barry couldn’t see the screen. She’d also taken the time to organise Caitlin’s hair. Doctor Lincoln stood on the other side of the bed, watching the life support equipment. The others shuffled around, making sure she’d have a clear path to the door if she need it.

“Okay, Cisco,” she said. “I’m ready. Go ahead.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Cisco replied.

He glanced over at Felicity, who gave him a small nod. Barry gave him his best smile, because the Flash wasn’t the only one who could do the impossible. Cisco smiled back, and pressed a button on the laptop.

“Come on, Caitlin,” he whispered. “Come back.”

The temperature in the room started dropping.

* * *

 She came back slowly. She was aware of her own body, of returning to it like liquid being poured into a jug. Outside, there was a hospital room, and to part of her that made perfect sense. She couldn’t reach it, though. Something was holding her down. She struggled, but it was so hard and things moved so slowly.

She saw Ronnie, wreathed in flames, eating pizza in a carnival. Her friend Louise, who she hadn’t thought about for a long time, read her the classic symptoms of hypothermia. Oliver Queen told her to hold still while he took aim at the apple on her head. She stood under a beautiful waterfall, but when she reached out and touched it, it turned to ice. Cisco danced the tango with Lisa Snart at the wedding of someone she thought she knew.

She realised they were just dreams, and they started to fade. The hospital room became more real. But she also walked across the lake, hand in hand with Barry, standing on the surface of the water. Doctor Wells told her she was dead, and had been for centuries. She sat next to Clarissa Stein, dangling her feet over a roaring wormhole, and heard secrets she knew she’d never remember when she woke.

For a moment, before she broke the surface, she knew something was wrong. She felt different, but couldn’t place how. She felt her heat beating, her lungs moving, the pressure of the cannula that she knew would be on her face. And she opened her eyes.

Louise was there, and that seemed so impossible that she wondered if she was still dreaming. She blinked, and her friend was still standing in the room, looking so drawn and rumpled that she had to be real.

She tried to call out, but her throat rasped at the attempt. Louise put something with a straw to her lips, and she was grateful to sip on it.

She tried to hold the cup. Her arms were slow to answer, but they moved. She was wearing something over her gown that looked a bit like fine wool but didn’t feel like anything she recognised. Her skin under it was pale, paler than it had been before.

Blue lights danced in front of her eyes. Something had happened, but it was so hard to remember.

“Can you tell me your name?” Louise asked.

Awareness questions, she knew. “Caitlin Snow,” she croaked.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Who’s the president?”

“Alexander Luthor.”

Louise nodded. “That’s good, Caitlin.”

The world faded for a moment, and when it came back, it was brighter. “Did I fall asleep?” she whispered.

“That’s normal,” Louise said. “Caitlin, do you remember what happened to you?”

She remembered the lights again, getting brighter and brighter until she couldn’t see anything else. She remembered standing on the steps of an art gallery. She remembered a detective called Crystal with a broken arm.

“It’s normal if you don’t,” Louise told her from far away. “It should come back.”

Caitlin did her best to nod. Traumatic amnesia was normal. But that would mean she’d been through something horrible. For a few seconds, her hands clenched into fists. There was something missing from one of them, but she couldn’t remember what.

She opened her eyes at the sound of the door. Louise had changed. She wondered what day it was. She recalled a Friday, a very early start for something important. She’d been nervous, but trying not to show it, and she’d talked to Crystal about baseball to pass the time.

 And then…

“Caitlin?”

Louise wasn’t alone. Cisco and was with her. His face was lined, his body hunched, as though he was about to fall. She remembered now, and it nearly choked her. She’d said thank you, and goodbye, and she’d died. Hadn’t she?

Cisco crossed the room in slow steps, as though he were frightened she’d melt away. She lifted her hand, just to prove that she could, and dropped it into his. They were warm, and they were real.

“Caitlin…” he whispered. “Are you…?”

She didn’t know how to answer, but seeing him trembling gave her the strength to try. There were so many things that didn’t make sense. She’d seen the impossible, and had so few certainties left. But he was one of them.

“I’m alive,” she said.

The tears came, his and hers. She barely had the strength to move, but she held on to him as tightly as she could. She knew from Louise’s face and Cisco’s shivers that she was a long way from okay. But somewhere in her soul, the rational, logical Doctor Snow believed in miracles.


	14. On the Clock

Joe was buzzed into an apartment block right on the edge of downtown, where the city started blending into the old docks. The building itself couldn’t have been more than ten years old, probably built on the site of something industrial that’d been torn down during the last construction boom. The apartment was on the twelfth floor. Joe knocked, and the door was opened by a compact, brown-skinned man who greeted him with a smile and faint trace of Canada in his voice.

“Terry Beach. You must be Joe.”

There were few men who’d react so casually to a cop in their hallway, even if they were dating one. Terry just gestured to the living room couch with the pencil in his hand and then disappeared into a small side room. Joe caught a glimpse of a drafting table and a home office that was now half full of boxes. He sat down on the couch, which seemed to have been recently colonised by throw and cluster of cushions, and the pieces started clicking together.

“Can I get you anything?” Terry asked when he reappeared.

Joe shook his head politely. He looked out of the window. There were worse views in Central City, and it kept the room well lit and feeling warm.

“Funny thing,” Terry said, “I’d been trying to figure out how to ask Crystal to move in with me for a month. Then this happened, and… I guess you’ve got to try and see the good in everything.”

It took Joe a second to get the message. It was never easy being the one left at home. Compared to some of the things Joe had seen, a broken arm was getting off lightly. And that was before you threw super-powered criminals into the mix.

“Anyway, I’m sorry she’s taking so long,” the other man continued, “I offered to help but she insisted she’d got a handle on dressing with one arm. And you were early.”

The bedroom door opened, and Crystal came through. Her right arm was out of its sling but she still had the cast on, with the sleeve of her blouse rolled up to her elbow. The cast didn’t seem to be impeding the use of her fingers, but the combined result had apparently made it impossible for her to get her jacket on.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” she said. “Terry, where’s my overcoat?”

“How’s your arm?” Joe asked, as Terry disappeared into the spare room in search of the right box.

“Okay, as long as I don’t forget it’s still in a cast,” she told him. “I banged it against a door yesterday and that hurt like hell. And Terry had to carry all the boxes to get me in here.”

“It was worth it.” Terry had reappeared, holding a raincoat that looked a little heavy for the weather, but had sleeves wide enough for Crystal to slip her arm into.

“Thank you,” she whispered to him.

Terry walked them to the front door. “Be safe,” he said. “It was good to meet you, Joe.”

Crystal gave him a quick kiss and a wave goodbye with her good arm, then she joined Joe by the elevator. It didn’t escape Joe’s notice that Terry stayed in the corridor until the elevator doors were shut.

“He seems like a nice guy,” Joe observed. The case hadn’t left him much time to ask about her personal life.

“He is,” she replied. “I know he can work from home, but I felt bad keeping him out of the office. That’s why I asked Captain Singh if I could come back early. He said I could, as long as I stayed behind you and ran the other way if I saw the Flash.”

Joe nodded. “Now that he’s managed to convince the mayor and the commissioner to keep us on the case, he wants it wrapped up fast.”

 “So what’s first?” Crystal asked, following Joe to the car.

“The gallery,” Joe told her. “The curator called me yesterday. They’ve finally done enough repairs to take an inventory.”

 “They know what he took?”

“Yeah. It was clock. He said he’d tell us the rest today.”

They headed back to the gallery with Crystal staring out of the window. He didn’t blame her for being thoughtful or anxious. It’d taken him a lot longer than a week to get his head around the impossible world he’d suddenly become part of, and he’d made some bad calls along the way.

“How’s Caitlin?” Crystal asked after a few blocks. “Barry said she’d woken up.”

“When did you speak to Barry?”

“He called me at the weekend,” she replied. “He said he thought I’d want to know.”

Joe sighed. Sometimes he wished Barry would try a little less hard to help everyone, or at least think it through first. It was bad enough when he did it with the suit on.

“Caitlin’s still under observation,” he said. “Her doctor won’t say any more yet.”

“Doctors are like that,” Crystal said lightly. “The one who wrapped up my arm took five minutes to make up his mind how long I’d have to wait for it to heal. I’m sure he knew, he just didn’t want to tell me in case I sued him for being wrong.”

“Doctors are good at being vague,” Joe said quietly.

He couldn’t help but think of the ones who’d tried to treat Barry. They’d been very vague. Probably because they hadn’t known a damn thing about what was happening and were trying to keep him from realising that until they come up with something. That was why Wells had stood out: he’d been honest about his ignorance, but also firm in his belief that he could help.

He pulled himself out of the past, wondering if he’d ever be able to stop trying to work out why Wells had done the things he’d done, and focussed on finding a parking spot. He had to open the door for Crystal, and she adjusted her coat to make the cast less obvious before they headed into the gallery.

They were met by a needle-thin art historian in clothes that apparently pre-dated his crash diet. He showed them into a small, gloomy office at the base of one of the building’s towers that he shared with someone who, judging by the almost visible line down the middle of the room, he didn’t get on with very well.

“Daniel Carstairs,” he said finally, “the gallery’s horology expert. That’s clocks to everyone else.”

Joe decided not to mention that he knew that, and instead asked, “Do you have a lot of clocks here, Mr Carstairs?”

“Fifty-two. Or fifty-one, now. Clock-making was one of Central City’s major craft industries at the end of the last century.”

“Which clock was taken?” Crystal asked.

Carstairs took some photographs from a file and spread them across the desk. The missing clock was a rectangle of dark wood, with a narrowed section in the middle containing the face itself and flanked on either side by reproductions of Greek pillars that appeared to hold up the ‘roof’. The base was patterned to look as though it was made out of stone and the flat top had a raised central part on which had been engraved images of men on horseback. The face had patterns of gold weaving all the way around the edge and in between the carefully styled black numerals. It stood slightly off the ground on heavy feet fashioned to look like an eagle’s claws.

To hammer the point home, Carstairs calmly read the description from the museum’s catalogue. “Mantle clock made in the European style by the Sterling Company of Keystone City. Dated from between eighteen ninety-four and ninety-nine. Ebony body with gold fixtures and engraving of English country scene. Enamelled face with gold filigree patterns. Internal mechanism still all original parts, some minor wear and tear.”

“Wow,” Crystal muttered.

“Where did you get it from?” Joe asked.

Another page of notes was produced. “It was donated three years ago by a representative of the Wayne Foundation, who bought it at auction for an undisclosed sum. Before you ask, if I had to guess, I’d say they probably paid between twenty and thirty thousand dollars for it, depending on the bidding.”

“Thirty thousand?” Joe repeated.

“Sterling were one of the most famous companies on this side of the country,” Carstairs explained. “Even the English bought from them. I think this was a special commission. It’s unique.”

“Who did the Foundation buy it from?”

“The record says the sale was made anonymously. Someone probably found it in an attic and made a fortune.”

“Do you know why someone would want to steal this clock specifically?” Crystal asked.

Carstairs blinked. “Just the money. Isn’t that enough reason?”

* * *

 Joe passed the pictures to on to the Art and Antiques Department, just in case the clock turned up on a collector’s shelf. He didn’t think it would, though.

“Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Crystal said.

Joe sighed. “But it’s not as much as you can make robbing jewellery stores or ATMs.”

“Or experimental chips from Mercury Labs,” Crystal added. She looked around her, checking the distance to the nearest potential listener. “Before the gallery, I kept thinking that was the odd one out. A guy would have to be pretty smart to go into a place like that and find something worth taking. But then again, they must have known they wouldn’t be able to sell it.”

Joe shrugged. He could feel where this was going and tried not to look like he was working out how to lie to his new partner.

“The strange thing is that this has happened before,” Crystal went on, “and you never mentioned it.”

“What has?”

She stopped smiling. “Joe, come on. I’ve seen every file CCPD has on weird robberies, even the ones that someone tried very hard to lose. At the end of last year, a man broke into Mercury Labs to steal some sort of experimental prototype. The one surviving witness said he was wearing a yellow suit. And you’ve never mentioned this, even though your name’s in the file too.”

“It’s not him,” Joe said, hoping that would be enough and knowing it wouldn’t be.

“How do you know?”

“Just trust me, okay?”

“No,” Crystal said. “I’m your partner. You knew there was someone else out there who could move like the Flash and wore a yellow suit. You knew because you were the one who buried the file. Now you say it can’t be him and I am asking you, as your partner, how can you be so sure?”

Joe bowed his head, feeling the world slip a little out of control. He’d had moments before where he could either be a good cop or a good father, and he’d never known if he’d done the right thing. In the end, he made his choice because it was almost certainly what Barry would want him to do.

“It can’t be the man in that report,” he told her quietly, “because that man is dead.”

“Did the Flash do it?” Crystal asked.

“ _What_?”

He barely kept his voice down, he certainly couldn’t keep the shock from his face. But Crystal wasn’t accusing. She looked sad, like she was didn’t want it to be true either.

“No. No, it wasn’t the Flash.” He braced himself to offer her a little more of the dangerous truth. “It… it was Eddie. He had to.”

“They told me Detective Thawne died the day of the storm. Saving people.”

“He did.”

She must have seen the plea in his eyes not to push any further. Or maybe she understood that it was the truth, even if there was more. She sat back in her chair and turned over the Mercury Labs report again. Then she slowly leaned forward. The look in her eyes had changed.

“Joe, I need you to be honest with me. I don’t want names, but I need you to tell me how many other people know that the man in yellow is dead.”

It took him a moment to work out how to take the chance she was offering. “Just… the people who were there when it happened.”

“And none of you have ever told anyone else?”

“No. Crystal…”

The smile was coming back. “Go with me on this, Joe. Before Christmas, a man in yellow breaks into a Mercury Labs to steal a prototype. Nine months later, a man in yellow breaks into a different Mercury Labs building to steal experimental processors. If you’d read both of these reports, and you didn’t know what you knew, what would you think?”

“That it’s the same guy. But it isn’t.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think whoever’s wearing this yellow suit knows that. He somehow knew about the first robbery and decided to wear the same colour do it himself, because he figured we’d think it was the same guy twice.”

Something about that first case flickered through Joe’s mind. Burying it had meant almost no notes made it into the file, but there were some things he still remembered. Something about tachyons, a word that Joe was beginning to wish he’d never heard in the first place.

“You might be on to something,” he said. “Keep looking at the file. I’ve gotta go make a call.”

Apparently he’d earned enough of her trust back that she let him go without a word. He headed around the corner and then took the long route to Barry’s lab. He half expected to find it empty, but Barry was there, and he did look like he was working on his day job.

“Hey, Joe. What’s up?”

“I need to ask you about tachyons,” Joe said.

Barry glanced around. “Okay… what about them?”

“You remember the device that… was stolen from Mercury Labs at Christmas? What was it for?”

Barry’s voiced dropped. “Wells…”

Joe shook his head. “No. Not what he did with it. What was it designed for?”

“I… I don’t know,” Barry answered eventually. “Generating tachyons by itself is a pretty big deal. They’re almost entirely theoretical and Mercury Labs probably never got anywhere near coming up with any practical applications.”

“Okay, okay. Now is it possible that someone could use that device to affect time like this guy we’re chasing does?”

It wasn’t often he got to see Barry out of his depth. The boy made a few vague waves with his hands before settling down. “I guess… I don’t know how, we’d have to ask Cisco. But tachyons do theoretically travel through time. Is that how you think he’s doing it?”

“I don’t know,” Joe answered. “But Crystal thinks that the reason this guy is wearing yellow is because he knew about the attack on Mercury Labs and is trying to make it like there’s only one thief both times.”

Barry put his hands over his mouth. “A copycat? Cisco thought it was supposed to look like me, but if it’s supposed to look like the Reverse Flash…”

“Then the only people who could have done this are the ones who worked on the original prototype and who knew that it was stolen by a man wearing yellow.” 

“That’s great, Joe.” Barry grinned. “I’ll call Doctor McGee.”

Joe held up his hand. “No. I’ll call her. She already knows you know the Flash, I don’t want her thinking about it any harder than she already does.”

* * *

 Crystal hadn’t asked what Joe had done to confirm her hunch. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She’d hardly reacted when he’d told her that they needed to make an appointment with Doctor Tina McGee at Mercury Labs, or that Joe was certain that a senior member of the city’s leading scientific R&D company would clear her schedule to see them. Despite that, Crystal’s eyes did widen a little when Doctor McGee’s PA called back within half an hour and arranged a meeting for the following morning. It was only when the man mentioned that they should come to the complex on Williams Drive that Joe began to worry.

They were kept waiting for five minutes in the reception room before Doctor McGee appeared. In spite of her usual confidence, she seemed on edge. This just made the suspicion in Joe’s mind nag louder.

“Please follow me, detectives,” she said. “I suppose you remember from your interviews that this is where we keep our main storage and backup servers.”

Crystal gave Joe a cautious glance. She seemed to be aware of his suspicion but was determined to act as if everything was normal and she wasn’t thinking the same.

“Backup servers?”

“Of course,” Doctor McGee responded. “We keep data on thousands of projects. Some of them never get out of the planning stage. The servers in the central labs can only accommodate so much information, so everything else is stored here and can be accessed if needed.”

Joe’s hunch crystalized. He’d never seen Doctor McGee nervous before.

“Can we have access to the information on the tachyon prototype?” he asked.

Doctor McGee stopped at the entrance to one of the storage rooms and finally faced them. “No, I’m afraid you can’t. All the data on that project is missing from our servers. Plans, timetables, budgets, even the HR files. It’s all gone.”

“You must have had physical backups,” Crystal exclaimed.

“We did.” Doctor McGee told her. “That’s why we’re here.”

She opened the door with her keycard and beckoned them to follow. The room on the other side was lined with the longest, largest storage cabinets that Joe had ever seen. It dwarfed even the CCPD records room, somewhere Joe had only been once and swore he’d never go back. He wondered what Cisco would give for ten minutes in here, among these half-finished eureka moments.

They were led down the third alley from the door and then to a big cabinet about half way down. It was labelled with an incomprehensible code, and Joe noticed it didn’t have a lock.

“This is where the hardcopy papers on the tachyon project were stored.”

Without another word, she opened the cabinet. Joe didn’t have to look inside. The hollow sound was enough to tell him it was empty.

He’d been almost certain, but he’d been hoping he was wrong. “Damn,” he muttered.

“That man didn’t come here for experimental chips, did he?” Doctor McGee asked. “He came here to remove all the records of the tachyon project. Why?”

Joe sighed. They may have been late to a lead, but at least the effort that the man in the suit had put into his cover-up confirmed his theory.

“Doctor McGee, whoever this man is, he worked on that project. Somewhere in that information was his name or a way to find him.”

“So what will you do now?”

“We’ll find him anyway,” Joe said.


	15. It's Hard to be a Saint in the City

Iris sat in the corner of Caitlin’s room, putting the finishing touches to her journalistic masterpiece: _Knight Takes Queen: An Interview with Starling City’s Prodigal Son_. Her editor had been astonished by the pile of notes she’d dumped on his desk and she’d been given a week to work it into a spread for the Saturday edition. It had taken a while, but they’d even found time for some photographs of Oliver before the inevitable call that he was needed back in Starling.

Caitlin stirred and blinked awake. “Hey,” Iris said.

“Hi,” Caitlin said. “Where’d Barry go?”

“Barry was here this morning,” Iris told her. “You must have fallen asleep.”

“Damn,” Caitlin muttered. “Tell him I’m sorry, will you?”

“He understands.”

Caitlin slumped in the bed. “Doctors make terrible patients. I tell Louise that I’m fine and then I sleep for six hours without even realising it. And all I can think of is how much I want to get out of this hospital. I owe Barry so many apologies.”

“You just fell asleep.”

“No, not for that,” Caitlin said. “For all those times I treated him like a science project. Or when I told him he’d be more valuable in the lab than out on the streets. Turns out it’s not so much fun being on the other end of the microscope.”

Iris closed her laptop and sat on the edge of the bed. She took Caitlin’s hand. It was still so cold, but she was getting used to that.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Caitlin sighed. “If you asked Louise about the girl she went to med school with, it wouldn’t sound like me. After Ronnie died, I was different. I knew I’d never get back to being that Caitlin again. And I was just starting to like who I was now. I had Ronnie, I had friends, I was doing something important to help people. And then this happened.” She waved at the thermometer. “And now I don’t know who or what I am anymore.”

“Well, we all do,” Iris told her. “You’re still Caitlin. Just like Barry’s still Barry and Cisco… is still Cisco. I’ll prove it to you.”

“How?”

Iris retrieved her laptop, closed the text file, and opened up her folder of notes on the case. “You, Doctor Snow, are still one of the smartest people I know, and you’re going to help me figure out my next big story. The real identity of the False Flash.”

“The False Flash?” Caitlin repeated.

“No good?”

“Apparently what Cisco does is harder than it looks.”

“Now there’s my Caitlin,” Iris said. “I need to find a way to find him before the police do.”

“Why?”

“Because if the police find him, then it’s a city desk story. But if I find him, then Barry finds him, and then it’s a Flash story.”

Caitlin nodded slowly. “Okay. That is… logical, I suppose. So how are you going to do it?”

Iris opened her notebook. She kept notes on both her computer and the book, because scribbling was much more satisfying than typing. “I can’t go to Mercury Labs because CCPD is already there and my dad has them interviewing everyone who might have known about this tachyon… thing. I’ve done my own interviews at the jewellery store and at the bank, but I don’t think they told me anything they didn’t tell the police. And nothing that helps. I think the key has to be this clock that he took from the gallery.”

“Yeah…”

Iris looked down at her. “Oh, I’m so sorry. We don’t have to talk about this.”

“No, it’s fine. Really. I think about it a lot. Too much. I… I like having something to focus on.”

“Okay…” Iris took a breath. “Where was I? Okay, the clock. I spoke to Mr Carstairs at the gallery and he told me everything he told my dad. I got the same pictures off the website. I’ve called the Wayne Foundation five times but no one’s called me back. That’s a long shot anyway.”

“Aren’t the police investigating this?” Caitlin asked.

Iris shrugged. “Barry told me, off the record, that the Arts and Antiques department is three months behind on its cases. The guys who work there practically are antiques.”

Caitlin frowned. Iris waited expectantly, trying not to tap her pen on the edge of the bed.

“It sounds like what you need is an expert,” Caitlin said eventually.

“But no one at the gallery could help,” Iris pointed out.

“Then you need a different sort of expert. If you have a patient who needs heart surgery, you don’t send them to a heart consultant, you send them to a surgeon.”

Iris started tapping the pen, trying to see the problem from the other way around. “This clock was bought in an auction,” she muttered. “The story isn’t the clock. The story is why it was sold. And why it was sold anonymously.”

“So who would know about that?”

Something flashed through Iris’ memory. “Oh, there was… something. A note. Something my dad said. Where is it?” She scrolled back through the file. “Before the bank robbery, the night Barry stopped the shoot-out at the warehouse… there. He said they’d gone there because they had a tip from a fence.”

“Well, don’t just sit there,” Caitlin said. “Go. Go find your story.”

“What about you?”

Caitlin shrugged. “I’ll be alright.” She gestured to her book. “I’ve still got the Count to keep me company.”

“If you need anything, just call me,” Iris said. “Thank you, Caitlin.”

For the first time since she’d woken up, Iris saw Caitlin smile. “I’m glad I could help.”

* * *

It took Iris the best part of a day to track down the antiques dealer. She ruled out anyone at CCPD immediately; if word got back to her dad, he’d do his best to stop her investigation cold. She took an odd pride in the fact he’d do that to any reporter nosing around the edge of his case and that it wasn’t just another attempt to ‘keep her safe’. That left the city desk, and since the shoot-out was old news, she had no problem getting all the notes on the incident, but none of them explained what had brought the CCPD to Andre Vasin’s warehouse.

With no help at her own paper, Iris quietly called the desk at the _Keystone Post_ and ran the same routine. They’d done their own story on Vasin’s arrest, but their source within the KCPD had also heard that a tip had been passed over the bridge concerning help from a bookkeeper. This sounded like a dead end, accountancy and antiques didn’t seem like they ran together, but half way through her lunch break it occurred to her that someone could have misheard the story. An hour searching through the online back issues of the _Post_ was enough to locate the story of a reputable book-seller’s second arrest for receiving stolen goods. Five more minutes gave her his address.

She spent the drive up to Keystone working on her strategy, and the walk from the car to the shop’s front door terrified that it would all fall apart. Then she looked her reflection up and down walked into the shop.

The air reminded her of the old newspaper storage room. The store had the deliberate silence of a library. It hadn’t been open long enough for any customers to drift in yet.

“Can I help you?” asked the woman behind the counter. Obviously, Iris didn’t look much like a bibliophile.

“I’m Iris West, with _Central City Picture News_. I’d like to speak to Mr Sims, if that’s possible.”

The woman picked up the phone. “Peter, there’s a reporter here. She wants to speak to you.” She looked Iris up and down and sighed. “Yes, she is. Okay.”

Iris was shown up to a private office that had more in common with the other kind of bookkeeper. In his grey suit, Peter Sims certainly didn’t look like the kind of person who’d be trading in antiques. More like stocks, equity, bonds, and other words the Finance guys thought would impress her. The tie was loosened and the collar was undone. Iris noted the difference between this and the more buttoned-up image on the store’s website, and knew exactly who it was supposed to impress.

“How can I help you… Ms West?”

Iris kept her smile on. “Please, call me Iris.”

“Iris. Please sit down. How can I help you?”

“I’m researching a story and I was wondering if I could ask for your assistance.”

Sims gave a slow nod. “What sort of story?”

“It’s about the theft from the Central City Museum of Art.”

Sims smiled. “Yes. The _Post_ said it was the work of… what is it they call him now? ‘Captain Cold’? You don’t think it was?”

Iris tried not to let her nerves show. This was where she told a story of her own. “I know it wasn’t. The police are covering something up. I think they think the Flash did it.”

She waited for the moment of truth. He hadn’t recognised her name when she came in, or mentioned her column. Even if he did, she had a backup plan. But it didn’t look like she’d need it. Sims eyes drifted over her for a few seconds before he spoke again.

“The Flash’s life of crime. That would be a story. But why ask me?”

Iris leaned forward a little. “I’ve heard the false accusations the police have made about your business. When this breaks, I don’t think it will look good for the CCPD. I thought we could help each other.”

“So how can I help you, Iris?”

She laid the pictures out on the desk. “This is what was stolen from the gallery. I want to find out why the Flash would take it. But to do that, I need to know what it is. I’ve got some information on it here, but I was hoping you could fill in the blanks. Off the record, of course.”

Sims shook his head. “No.”

She froze and tried to stay calm while she repeated, “No?”

“If I help you,” Sims said, “I want to be credited as your source. On the record, on the front page when this story breaks.”

Iris recovered her smile. “Of course. Whatever you want.”

She reached across the desk and shook his hand.

* * *

Three days later, Iris braced herself and drove across the bridge to have lunch with Peter Sims. Caitlin wished her luck. She hadn’t told anyone else.

He’d invited her to an uptown café whose lunch menu prices were high enough that she knew he was trying to tell her how well the book business was treating him. Part of her was impressed that he’d managed to turn up the information he’d promised in such a short time. Another, more curious part, wondered what that said about his input into the store he was supposed to be running.

She sat down opposite him, listened as he asked for some wine, and then ordered herself soup and salad. She spent the next forty minutes sipping the wine as slowly as possible while Sims talked about his business. According to him, there was a fine art to buying and selling antiques, and old books especially. It wasn’t just the age or the quality, the market had trends and fashions. The works of one writer could suddenly rise in value and drop just as quickly. To make the point, he regaled her with the stories of some of his most impressive purchases and sales.

Eddie had never talked this much about work. Of course, like her father, he couldn’t have done if he wanted to, but even then, he didn’t. He’d made a few boasts in their early days about cases he’d worked on, but most of the stories he could tell her were the ones that made her laugh, even if they made him look less than impressive. She’d followed the awkward, chubby little boy from the declining factories of Keystone to the nervous young man who’d joined the KCPD out of a desire to stop the lives he’d grown up around being made any worse.

She could think of that now, without feeling a knife through her heart. It still ached, but the pain was starting to recede. It made her feel a little guilty, but Caitlin assured her that it was a good thing. It meant she could look back on all those times they’d shared and be glad they’d happened, and know that she wouldn’t change them, no matter how it had ended.

Finally, just as Iris was wondering how far her journalistic professionalism could stretch, Sims stopped his business autobiography and she managed to force him onto the subject he’d supposedly invited her to lunch to talk about.

“Of course,” he began, “horology was never one of my interests so I hope you’re impressed by how quickly I was able to put this information together.”

Apparently this was meant to be a joke, so Iris managed a laugh and replied, “I am. What did you find out?”

“The clock was made by Sterling, on commission by someone in this city. I think it was auctioned out of state because a dealer here would recognise it. So I did some investigation into catalogues and industry magazines from the five years before the sale. And I found it.”

He handed her a printout. It wasn’t much to go on. A picture of someone’s front room, with the interior decoration done by Jay Gatsby. There was a pale floor, an oriental patterned rug, a glass-fronted wooden cabinet full of books, a huge impressionist painting, a green baize card table, several heavy chairs, a chaise-lounge, a faux-fireplace. And against the far wall, well out of the sunlight, a mantelpiece holding a vase, a statue and the missing clock.

“Where is this?” she asked.

Sims passed her another picture. The hallway leading up to the room, with the door open and the painting just visible through it. Standing to the left of the door was the hallway’s proud owner, a bald man in his seventies wearing the sort of dark blue suit that Sims probably aspired to.

“Oswald Keaton,” Sims told her. “One of Keystone’s great collectors. He died four years ago, and his collection vanished. Probably into a lot more anonymous auctions all over the country.”

This time Iris’ smile was genuine. “Thank you, Mr Sims.”

“Peter, please.”

“Peter.” Iris saw her way out and seized it before they moved on to dessert. “I have to go and do some checks. I’ll call you when I know more, or if I need another favour.”

“I’ll be happy to help you again,” Sims said.

He took her hand, and she nearly jumped when he kissed her cheek, but was just able to keep herself under control. Her smile only needed to last for a few more minutes, to gather up the information she’d been given and get out of the café.

Iris slammed the door of her car closed and leaned on the wheel. “Oh, god,” she muttered, “that was the worst date ever.”

She laughed to herself over it, imaging what Caitlin would say when she told her the story. Bad dates, that was something they’d never discussed, and now Iris really wanted to know. Imagining Caitlin’s idea of a bad date kept her laughing, because she knew if she didn’t she’d start to cry.

* * *

Oswald Keaton was part of Keystone City’s old industrial aristocracy. He’d inherited a steelworks, which he’d sold ahead of the curve when the collapse had come and put the money into stocks that had supported him and his art collection until he’d died at the age of 79. He’d left two sons. One had vanished eastwards and only set foot in the city to bury his father, and the other had apparently very quietly sold off everything his family owned and now lived in a surprisingly uninteresting corner of Central City for a man worth more than four and a half million dollars.

Frederick Keaton hadn’t sounded happy at being called by the paper, but he’d agreed to meet Iris. She drove up to the medium-sized house where he lived alone. The man who greeted her looked younger than his 47 years, despite having inherited his father’s receding hairline. He offered her a drink, she politely declined, and they sat down in his kitchen looking out over the garden.

“What did you want to ask about, Ms West? I haven’t spoken to a reporter in a long time.”

Iris nodded. “I’m working on a story about the theft of something that once belonged to your father.”

Keaton stiffened in the chair. “Ms West, one of the reasons I haven’t spoken to reporters is that I don’t talk about my father. Or my brother. Or anyone else in my family.”

He hesitated, and Iris took the opening to hand him the photographs. “This clock was part of your father’s collection, wasn’t it? It was bought by the Wayne Foundation three years ago and donated to the Central City Museum of Art. It was stolen three weeks ago.”

“This clock?” Keaton repeated, without looking up from the images.

“Yes. Did you put it up for auction?”

Keaton nodded slowly. “Yes, I did. Along with everything else my father collected. My brother got half the money, but he probably lost most of it. I gave most of mine to local charities.”

Iris made some hurried notes. “Why?” she asked.

Keaton bowed his head. “Off the record, Ms West.”

“Off the record. I promise.”

He looked up into her eyes and gave a faint, sad smile.

Then the French windows shattered.

Iris looked over Keaton’s shoulder and couldn’t help but shriek as the glass sprayed across the room. She threw up her hand, but as she did so, she caught a glimpse of something in the gap. Then it was gone. For a split-second, Keaton’s eyes went wide with fear, then he disappeared backwards out of his chair, smashing against the kitchen floor with the most awful sound Iris had ever heard. Then there was another terrible tearing noise as Iris covered her eyes.

Slowly, she became aware that the room was silent, except for her own terrified gasps. She fought her breathing under control and slowly got out of the chair. Glass crunched under her feet as she walked around the table and looked down at the man on the floor.

His eyes were still open, just like Eddie’s had been. His head lolled to one side and there was something horribly wrong with the angle of his neck. She took another breath, and knelt next to him, focussing on taking his limp wrist and feeling for a pulse. Nothing. He lay absolutely still.

She straightened up and fumbled for her bag, her phone. Then she looked down at the tabletop. She hadn’t seen it before. There was a word carved deep into the wood: _Stop_.

Her hands were shaking, she hit the first number she could find, barely registering whose. It rang and rang and then, mercifully, answered.

“Daddy?”

“Iris? Iris, what’s wrong?”

She fought the panic, tried to find something to focus on and her eyes caught her notes. “Frederick Keaton.” She gave the address. “I was just talking to him and… he killed him. The man in yellow.”

“Iris, listen to me. Is he still there?”

“I don’t… I think he’s gone.” Control was slowly coming back. “I’m okay. I’m fine, but…”

“Iris, honey, it’s alright. I’m just going to put the phone down for thirty seconds, then I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay.”

Forty long seconds of silence passed and before she heard him again. “Iris, help is coming. Are you sure you’re alright?”

The panic was draining away now, but she couldn’t stop hearing that terrible crack as Keaton’s neck had broken. She tried to block it out, focussing on her arms. There was a cut on the back of her hand. She supposed it must have come from the glass.

“I’m okay.”

There was a clatter at the other end of the house. She nearly jumped out of the chair.

“Iris!”

“Barry!”

He was in the room in a second, his arms around her, pressing her against his reassuring hummingbird heartbeat. “It’s okay, Iris. It’s okay. I’m here.” He gently slipped the phone out of her hand. “Joe, it’s me. Iris is okay. You’ve got to send somebody. There’s a guy here, I think his neck’s broken.”

“He did it,” Iris hissed. “The man in the suit. We were just talking. I didn’t even see him. He came in and he killed him.”

“It’s okay,” Barry said again.

Iris knew it wasn’t. She knew exactly why Frederick Keaton had been killed, and she wasn’t going to let the murderer get away with it.

* * *

When Iris came into Caitlin’s room the next day, Caitlin was sitting up with Cisco, waiting. Barry was running late, of course, but he’d actually remembered to call ahead this time. 

“Are you okay?” Caitlin asked.

“You kinda look like you haven’t slept,” Cisco said.

“I slept a little,” Iris replied, trying to sound light, not wanting to mention that the nightmares had started all over again. “How are you? 

“Better,” Caitlin answered.

“They’re thinking about letting her go home,” Cisco said. He didn’t sound very happy about it.

“With careful monitoring, of course,” Caitlin added.

Iris had the distinct feeling that she was catching the aftermath of an argument. Or perhaps the half time show of a long one.

Then Barry pulled open the door. “Hey, guys. I’m sorry I’m late. I had to finish an analysis so I can clear everything and focus on the Keaton case.”

“Does Joe have any leads?”

Barry shook his head. “No. Did you find something, Iris?”

“I did,” she said. “The man in the suit killed Keaton because Keaton knew his name. And, I think, for revenge.”

“How do you know that?” Barry asked.

“Because I found out who he is.”

“You did? Who? How?”

Despite how tired she felt, Barry’s astonishment still made her smile. “It was the clock. Everything he did, he did to get it back. The jewellery store, the bank, the labs. Maybe even the reason he kept the suit to himself rather than winning the Nobel Prize for building it.”

“So what’s so special about this clock?”

“That’s why I spent the whole night going through newspapers from forty years ago. Oswald Keaton owned a family steelworks, but during the seventies he had to look for outside investment to keep it running. Then, at the beginning of the eighties, the industry crashed and the Keaton works went bankrupt. Except that Keaton had sold most of his interest just before the collapse. His investors weren’t so lucky, and several of them lost everything. One of them was the scion of a very old local family, who had to sell of most of his family’s possessions to repay his debts. And the only person he could find to buy them was Keaton himself.”

“Ouch,” Cisco muttered.

“Okay,” Barry said. “But how do you know it’s anything to do with this guy?”

“The key was on the clock,” Iris told him. “It must have been one of the things that Keaton bought. Look at the engraving at the top. What do you see?”

She passed her laptop around with the image on the screen. “Two British guys on horses, with funny hats,” Cisco said. “And… is that a dog?”

“An English country scene.” Caitlin repeated the description given by the gallery.

Iris nodded. “Okay. Now look at this.”

She changed the image. This one was a picture from a British newspaper of a group of men in long red coats riding horses down a city street, following a pack of trotting dogs.

“I saw something like that in the international news over the summer,” Iris said. “It’s from a protest against the British ban on hunting foxes.” She brought the engraving up next to it. “The description of the clock is wrong. It’s not just any country scene, it’s a _hunting scene_. And Keaton’s investor, the one who had to sell everything he owned to the guy who’d ripped him off, was called David Hunter.”

“The clock belonged to him,” Barry said.

Iris grinned, feeling a savage satisfaction in what came next. “He died in the nineties, but he had a son too. His son teaches of theoretical physics at Central City University, and his name is Solomon Hunter.”

Barry’s pleasant astonishment shifted into a bright smile. “Iris, that’s brilliant! We’ve got him!”

“Wait,” Caitlin said.

“What is it?”

“We don’t quite have everything yet. He doesn’t have a name.”

Barry gave her a confused look. “Yeah, he does. Iris just told us.”

Caitlin shook her head. “No, not like that. He needs a _name_. Cisco?”

Cisco turned to look at her. “What?”

“Cisco, what do we call him?”

Cisco shrugged. “Like Barry said, we’ve got his name.”

Caitlin sighed. “No, Cisco. He needs a nickname. We have to give him one because no matter what he’s done, he’s just another criminal who the Flash is going to chase down and send to jail.”

They looked at each other for a long, quiet moment. Then Cisco stood up, his hands pressed together. “Okay. Okay. Barry? Iris? Caitlin?”

“We’re with you, man,” Barry said.

Cisco finally smiled. “Alright. Let’s go catch Professor Zoom.”


	16. Ariadne’s Thread

“Are you sure about this?” Cisco asked, for the tenth time.

Caitlin sighed. “Yes, Cisco, I’m sure about this. I’m a doctor, and in my professional medical opinion, I’m ready to be let out of this hospital.”

She was glad he didn’t try the ‘second opinion’ routine again. Louise wasn’t happy about releasing Caitlin either, but then Louise wasn’t happy about any part of a medical condition that had left her patient with the body temperature of a cool autumn day. Louise had sworn she’d never try to write this up, mainly because she didn’t think anyone would believe it, so at least Caitlin didn’t have to worry about Snow Syndrome entering the medical textbooks.

Unfortunately, while this meant that Louise had finally agreed that there was nothing more she or St Peter’s could do for Caitlin, Cisco was still arguing.

To prove he was wrong, Caitlin swung her legs off the bed and pushed herself upright. She flinched as pain stabbed through her knees, but then it settled into a dull ache as she took a few steps towards him. Cisco had added a set of leggings to her thermal suit, but her new low temperature and the weeks of inactivity made it difficult for her to stay on her feet.

“Cisco, look at me. I can stand up on my own. I can walk. I can eat. I can take showers. I can put on… whatever you call this. I can even wash my hair and put on makeup. What’s the problem?”

“We might need to run more tests on the suit,” Cisco responded. “I built it in a hurry and we don’t know how well it’ll function outside.”

Despite the growing discomfort in her knees, Caitlin stayed on her feet so she could look him in the eye. “Your idea of a field test for Barry’s suit was running around a tornado. Why is this one so different?”

He tried to look away, but she didn’t let him. “If it goes wrong, and I can’t fix it, you’ll die,” he said.

She took his hands. They felt so much warmer now. “Cisco, I trust you. You say this will keep my temperature high enough for me to function, and I believe you. You’ve never let me down before.”

There was a moment of confusion in his gaze. She knew he’d never really understand everything he’d done for her, in part because she’d never have the words to tell him. The best she could do was stand by him, like he’d stood by her.

Her joints were screaming now, but she had to get this out before something reminded him of her condition. “I can’t stay in here. I just can’t. And you can’t keep hovering around me running the same tests over and over. We both need to move on. Please. Barry needs us. He’s not going to be able to stop this… Professor Zoom without your help.”

“Without our help,” Cisco corrected, as she knew he would.

She smiled. “Good. Now… oh god, catch me.”

Her self-control broke and she flopped forward. She’d given him just enough warning to get his arms up so she could fall into them. She wrapped her own arms around his shoulders as he walked her back to the bed. Once she was safely down, the pain started to fade.

“You shouldn’t do stuff like that,” he said.

“It made my point, didn’t it?” she replied, managing another smile. “We’ve proved the suit can hold up to me being stupid, so now I can go back to being the sensible one.”

Louise pushed the door open. “Are you okay?”

Caitlin nodded, trying to stretch the aches out of her knees. “I’m fine. I was just proving a point.”

“First rule of medicine, Cisco,” Louise said. “Never have a doctor for a patient. I brought you your chair, Caitlin.”

It was a plain, simple electric wheelchair, without any of the complicated mountings that Doctor Wells had fastened to his own. But it still made her shiver a little to look at it. Wearing these all-black clothes, she was even dressed like him.

“I’ll help you,” Cisco said.

She put most of her weight on him for the two steps it took to reach the chair, and lowered herself into the seat. It wasn’t uncomfortable and it was easy for her to keep her posture. She tilted her left arm to look at the readouts and controls that Cisco had half built and half sewn into the underside of that sleeve. Her right hand rested on the chair’s little joystick.

“How do I look?”

Cisco grinned. “Fine. Not creepy at all. In any way.”

“If anything happens before next week, call me,” Louise reminded her.

“I will,” Caitlin promised. “Cisco, let’s go home.”

* * *

 The strangest thing was how familiar it all felt. For over a year, they’d learned to work around Doctor Wells’ supposed condition, loading him in and out of the van, negotiating ramps, walking at just the right speed to keep level with the chair. It was still second nature to both of them, and so Caitlin had no trouble getting the chair into the van or herself inside. It was actually easier now, since she could put weight on her legs for a few moments at a time, even though Cisco refused to let her lift anything. The only real difference was that when the journey started it was her in the passenger seat while Cisco drove.

She let them get half way back to the lab – of course they were going straight to STAR Labs, it was more home for both of them than where they actually lived – before she broke the silence.

“You could have told me, Cisco.”

“Told you what?”

“What Doctor Wells said to you. About you being affected by the explosion.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I was hoping he was wrong. That it was just a one-time deal because of what Barry did. But I don’t think it is.”

“Why? Have you seen something else?”

Cisco glanced over at her. It only lasted a moment, but it was one of the strangest looks he’d ever given her. Like he was searching for something, and not sure how to feel when he couldn’t find it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Not right now. The stuff I’ve seen… whatever it is, it’s not real. Not really.”

The statement sounded too much like a mantra for her liking, but she let that slide. She didn’t know much about what Cisco thought he could do, but even if he could see other universes and those other universes had other Caitlins in them, they weren’t her. After the accelerator disaster, her mind had been full of maybes, and then again in the dark nights alone in the hospital. But both times she’d fought back, reminding herself over and over that here and now was what mattered.

“It’s not real,” she told him. “This is.”

She touched his hand. He smiled. And they finished the journey in the kind of comfortable silence she’d missed so much.

When they reached the lab, he helped her out of the van and strolled alongside her up to the Cortex. The journey went a little slower than usual, it took a surprising amount of concentration to steer a wheelchair around STAR Labs’ curving corridors. Every time her concentration lapsed, her speed or direction would change with a jerk and she’d have to correct it. She’d hit Cisco’s leg three times before they finally made it.

“I thought you were supposed to be the good driver,” he grumbled, flicking on the computers.

There was an envelope resting between the two monitors. “What’s this?” Caitlin asked.

Cisco glanced over at the envelope and winced. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. That’s yours. Here.”

He opened it and slipped out her cold front necklace. The one she’d been wearing at the gallery.

“I said I’d look after it for you. And… here.”

He carefully took out a bundle of tissue paper and unfolded it. Her wedding ring glittered in the florescent lights. He’d assured her it would be waiting for her, but seeing it at last still made her feel lighter.

He’d apparently decided that putting it on her finger would be too strange, so he gently placed it in her palm. It took a moment, but she slipped it on to her left hand. Her fingers felt balanced again.

“Thank you, Cisco,” she whispered.

Cisco gave her an awkward grin. “You, I can run away from. Have you got any idea what Ronnie would do to me if I lost this? I’d have to spend the rest of my life wearing asbestos underpants.”

She wondered how long it would take to forget that mental image while Cisco finished with the computers. “This is everything Iris had time to find out about Professor Zoom. It’s not much. We might get something else from Joe.”

It crossed Caitlin’s mind that Joe might be deliberately withholding information in case it led to any of them – particularly Barry – going after the man without a proper plan.

“He’s smart, this guy, but he’s quiet,” Cisco went on. “Born in the city. Went to MIT. Studied math and physics. A couple of teaching positions, a couple of minor awards, and a whole bunch of papers on theoretical physics. It doesn’t add up.”

It all sounded like the career they’d been expecting. “What doesn’t?” she asked.

“I said this guy was smart, and he is, but everything there talks about theory. I haven’t seen anything in his research or history about applications. Sure, you’d look up his work if you wanted to build a tachyon generator, but he couldn’t do it himself. And he couldn’t do what he did to the Cold Tap.”

Caitlin bit her lip. She wasn’t sure how he’d take her next suggestion. “How long has he been at the university?”

“Umm… altogether, nearly ten years.”

She took a breath braced herself. “It’s possible Doctor Wells knew something about him. Given his expertise, he may have considered hiring him for STAR Labs.” Cisco didn’t say anything and she kept talking. “He collected detailed files on anyone with overlapping fields of interest, particularly once the particle accelerator project got started. He said he wanted to keep an eye on the competition. I think he was joking, but he definitely used them to find new recruits.”

“Including us?” Cisco asked.

“Probably. I think all the major labs do it.”

“Yeah, but not all of them are run by supervillains from the future.”

“Cisco,” she said gently, “not everything Doctor Wells did was evil. Some of it was just… HR.”

“Okay, okay.” Cisco ran his hands through his hair. “Where are these files? No, don’t tell me, they’re in his office aren’t they?”

She still hadn’t asked him where he’d put the key. She wasn’t sure he’d tell her anyway. She just started towards the office and he caught up with her half way there. They walked along in silence, he only sped up so he could get the door open in time to hold it for her.

Everything was just the same. There was dust, but only a little. She wondered if Barry had figured out where the key was kept and done some speed cleaning when everyone else was distracted. But Cisco didn’t seem surprised. Had he been doing the dusting?

Between the simplicity of the room and Doctor Wells’ need to keep everything well organised and within reach, it didn’t take too long to locate the files. Three flash drives, carefully labelled and stored in the wall cabinet at knee height. Then they left the office, and Cisco locked it behind them.

Back in the comfort of the Cortex, Cisco plugged in the first of the drives labelled ‘Personnel’. This one looked like it was a backup of the files on people who’d actually been employed by the lab.

“Do you want to look at your file?” Caitlin asked. “To see what he said?”

“No. Do you?”

She shook her head. If Doctor Wells had known something of her fate – and she kept telling herself that this was almost impossible – he would hardly have kept it in an official office file.

“Someone else,” she suggested. “Just to be sure.”

“Ronnie?”

“Ronnie.”

She felt a moment of panic as they opened Ronnie’s file, wondering if she’d been wrong. But there was nothing there but a detailed résumé – like Caitlin, he’d sent STAR Labs a list of almost everything he’d achieved since high school in his application – and several years of evaluations. Apparently Doctor Wells had done nothing more sinister than track his sick days and holiday time. She saw the last dates booked, and her stomach twisted: the week they’d planned to take their honeymoon.

Cisco must have seen her expression, because he hurriedly closed the file. “I guess you were right,” he said. “HR really is too boring to be evil.”

“What about the other drive?” Caitlin asked, pulling herself back to the present.

This drive was split in two. One file was marked ‘Applications’, the other ‘Candidates’.

“Try the applications first,” Caitlin said. “Maybe he did want to work here.”

“Let’s see… nope, nothing.” Cisco shrugged and reached for a lollipop. “What about… there. He’s got a file. I guess Wells did think about making him an offer.”

“Doctor Wells’ hiring practices weren’t always… perfect,” Caitlin admitted.

“Yeah, look at Hartley.”

“I was thinking more of Arthur Light.”

Cisco looked up from the screen. “One day, you’re really going to have to tell me that story.”

“What does the file say?” Caitlin asked.

“Hang on… okay… that’s more like it. Wells recorded the guy’s complete academic record, everything he did since his first PhD. It’s overlapping with what Iris gave us, but it looks like he also did several consulting jobs for Mercury Labs. The file said he’d just taken a new contract with them in November the year before last. And then the records stop, of course.”

“So he was probably consulting with them for at least part of the year after the accident. Working on the tachyon project.”

“Unless they had another one they weren’t telling us about.” Cisco grinned. “This is definitely our guy. He could do his university work a few days a week at spend the rest of the time at Mercury.”

“If he was there when they were building the device, that would explain his understanding of it.”

Cisco sucked thoughtfully. “Yeah… but… wait… Caitlin, what do Iris’ notes say he was in two-thousand-and-seven?”

Caitlin checked the other screen. “It says he was on sabbatical that year. And the next. Why?”

“Wells has a note here. Project Ariadne, US Army.”

“That was around the time Doctor Wells was working with General Eiling.”

“Yeah. Is there a drive for old projects or something?”

“Umm… here.”

They scanned through the project files. Most of it appeared to be ventures that had either been proposed by STAR Labs or that they had consulted on. There was also a whole file of plans for the accelerator that neither of them were eager to open.

But Doctor Wells had apparently been unconcerned with hiding things, which made sense given these were his personal files. They found Project Ariadne in a sub-folder labelled ‘Military’, next to the one on Grodd. Doctor Wells had even included some terse summary notes for his own reference.

“Project Ariadne,” she read. “US Army. Advanced superluminal detection grid. Ongoing at time of writing. Cisco, does that mean what I think it means?”

Cisco nodded. “Tachyons, yeah. Hang on a sec.” He located a summary document and scanned through the briefing material. “Oh yeah… of course.” Cisco beamed at her. “That’s it! That’s what we were missing.”

“What?”

Cisco pressed his hands together, obviously trying to figure out the best translation of particle physics into English. “Okay, this project was looking for naturally occurring tachyons. They did it by setting up a couple of… like energy funnels to channel the tachyons into some detectors they’d built deep underground, so they could analyse them.”

“Why?” she asked.

“It doesn’t say. But the thing is, Hunter came in to help build the grid. He didn’t just do the math, he helped figure out how to redirect the tachyons into the instruments.”

She nodded slowly, trying to follow Cisco’s logic. She’d learned a lot about detecting high-energy particles while working around the accelerator. She knew that one of the first operations it would have performed were some simple tests to make sure the receptors were tuned properly.

Then she saw the link. Making high-energy particles was one thing, but it was pointless without a way to manipulate them.

Cisco saw the understanding in her eyes. “Yeah, now you’re getting it. The stuff he did for this project what he based the suit on.”

“That does seem a bit absurd, though,” she pointed out. “How is he supposed to have condensed an enormous particle funnel into something light enough to wear?”

“Because he’s not looking for random tachyons anymore,” Cisco answered. “He’s got plenty and he knows where they’re coming from. He just needs to hold on to them.”

Caitlin felt the need for a summary, to make absolutely sure she understood. “So he uses a version of the device built by Mercury Labs to generate tachyons, which he harnesses using some sort of particle channel based on his work for the military, and this is what enables him to create a bubble of accelerated time around his suit?”

He grinned. “Yeah.”

She couldn’t quite match his grin, she just managed a slightly nervous smile. “So how does this help us?”

“Well, now we know how he’s doing it, we know what he’s got to use,” Cisco told her. “Okay, can you find the right program to hack the shipping lists for Palmer Tech, Queen Consolidated as well since this was before the buy-out, Kord Industries, Wayne Enterprises… and Radioshack. I’ll put together a list of components he’d need to build a miniature version of the tachyon funnel.”

She nodded. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”

“Great,” he said, and jumped out of the chair.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“Oh… right. I want to turn the detectors in the accelerator on. There’s a chance they might pick up something. A trail, maybe. Anything weird.”

She nodded, and he disappeared. She focussed on finding the program and accessing the sales manifests of the biggest tech firms on the country. She didn’t look up as the particle accelerator’s status lights blinked on for the first time since the singularity. She was glad when Cisco came back.

“You ready? Great.” He opened one of the Project Ariadne files and started looking through it. “Okay… start with something easy… teraflop microprocessors… then… tungsten electrodes…”

They went down the list, moving further and further into the realms of high energy physics. By the time they reached item eight, Caitlin had lost all frame of reference. She just typed as Cisco read, occasionally asking him to repeat himself and check her spelling. Her fingers started to ache but she ignored them.

She was taking a momentary break, watching Cisco pondering something that might have been a design blueprint, when she noticed that one of the accelerator readouts was flickering.

“Cisco. Cisco!”

“What?” he asked, without looking up.

She pointed. “What’s that?”

He looked up at her, then at the readout. “That’s… that’s one of the detectors. It’s picked up something.” He pressed a few keys to bring the readout onto the main screen. “Huh.”

“What is it?”

His face was almost completely blank. He was staring at the numbers on the display like they were as alien to him as they were to her.

“Cisco?”

“It’s a surge of exotic particles. Mesons, neutrinos and anti-gravitons. Just what you’d get from tachyons interacting with normal matter.”

His detachment was starting to scare her. They’d set up the detectors less than half an hour ago to look for exactly this sort of phenomenon. And put like that, it did seem very convenient.

“What does this mean?” she asked, wanting to hear it from him. 

Cisco looked up at her, and she knew she’d been right. “It’s a trap,” he said.


	17. Upward Streamers

Coming into the heart of STAR Labs with Joe for the second time in her life, Crystal felt no desire to look around. Instead, she looked at the people who were there to meet her. Barry, who she’d barely spoken to since the day his friends had been hurt, was leaning silently against the wall. His face was still as fresh as ever, but something in his eyes had aged. Cisco was watching the computers with a quiet intensity that seemed almost alien to him. Iris stood next to Barry, her back straight, arms crossed and her head up, looking so much like her father. And finally there was Caitlin, wrapped in black and sitting in a wheelchair, her face and hands icy pale.

Crystal sensed the links now, how keenly they were all aware of each other. It was the sort of closeness you only saw in cops, soldiers, gangs and families.

Cisco snapped his fingers and pointed at one of the screens. “There it is again.”

“Fourth time today,” Barry remarked.  

“What are we looking at?” Joe asked.

“Minor tachyon surges,” Cisco explained. “They’re coming from somewhere within a few blocks of… there.”

He pointed at a map on the other screen. It was the Keystone side of the lake, in one of the parts of the old docks that the developers hadn’t reached yet. Nothing there but converted warehouses whose rents were paid one month to the next. It didn’t look like the sort of place a scientist would set up if he had any other choice.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“That’s definitely where the signal’s coming from,” Cisco replied.

“Except the signal’s lying,” Iris said.

“How do you know?”

Caitlin picked up the story, since Cisco was still watching the computer. “At Christmas, we… we set a trap for the first man in yellow. We sent out pulses just like these so he’d know we had the tachyon device.”

“Professor Hunter has to know that the only places in the city capable of picking up these traces are Mercury Labs and right here,” Barry explained. “It’s bait.”

“How do you know it’s not really him?” Joe asked.

“Caitlin and I did some digging,” Iris said. “Cisco thinks he knows how Professor Hunter’s accelerator suit works, and how he built it. So we found out where he got the parts.”

Crystal didn’t ask where they’d got that information. The result would probably be evasions, lies, or, worse still, the truth.

“We can’t be sure exactly which orders are his,” Caitlin went on, “since he used false names, but all the deliveries came into locations around Central City.”

Barry handed Joe a printout. “Yeah, I know some of these,” Joe muttered. “They’re the kind of guys who’d take delivery of anything, for a price, and hold on to it until you want to come pick it up.”

Cisco finished whatever he’d been focussing on and looked up. “Then there’s the power problem. There’s no way you could pull the power you needed for the tachyon generator and the suit from the grid in that part of town without making a serious mess. And nobody’s done that.”  

“So this is a trap,” Joe said, “And it’s a trap for the Flash, isn’t it?”

“I guess he figured out the STAR Labs connection,” Barry said.

Crystal nodded. “If it’s a trap for the Flash, then we can’t let him walk into it.”

“But if we don’t,” Barry responded, “then we won’t know what the professor is planning.”

“Then we spring the trap,” Joe said. “Us. Cops. Can you figure out exactly where the signal is coming from?”

Cisco shrugged. “Sure, if I can get a detector close enough.”

“No.” Joe said. “This will be a police operation. Can you show Crystal how to use it?”

“Yeah. But you can’t cut us out, Joe.”

Crystal caught the nervous look that flitted across Joe’s face, and she realised the rest. “You’ll have to monitor the Flash. He’ll be our backup plan. Right, Joe?”

“Right.” Joe half sighed the word.

The lab team looked at each other. “Will Captain Singh approve?” Caitlin asked.

“Let’s find out.” Joe produced his phone, hit the speaker and rested it on the table.

Singh picked up almost immediately. “What is it, Joe?”

“We’ve got a lead on Professor Hunter’s location,” Joe told him.

“Where’s this lead come from, Joe?” Singh asked.

Joe tensed and said, “STAR Labs.”

The line was silent for a moment, then Singh came back. “Is Crystal there? What does she think?”

Crystal glanced at the others, ran over the evidence one more time, and went with her gut. “I think it’s a good lead, Captain.”

Another pause. “What do you need?” Singh asked.

“We need to go over the bridge tomorrow morning,” Joe explained. “We’ll need a SWAT team. Either ours or KCPD. And we might need the Flash’s help.”

“I can get you the SWAT,” Singh said. “And… you have my permission to invite the Flash.”

“Thank you, captain.” Neither of them could keep the relief out of their voices.

“Thank me by bringing this guy in. I’ll have the SWAT lieutenant call you. Good luck.”

* * *

The next morning, Crystal sat in the passenger seat of Joe’s car, looking out at one of the most rundown areas of Keystone and tried not to shiver. Central City had managed to pick itself up after the industrial slump, but recovery was slower to reach this side of the lake. The cold, quiet Sunday morning just seemed to make things look worse. She wondered how it had gotten to be October already.

Joe drove the car in a slow orbit while Crystal ran through the operation. Officer Bellows had made a last check of Professor Hunter’s office, and found no trace of the man. His colleagues at the university said his first teaching sessions weren’t for another week. They assumed he was at home working on his proofs. The unit sent to quietly check out his apartment had reported no response to the door and no help from the neighbours, who didn’t seem to know much about Hunter, beyond the fact he was quiet and usually polite. The APB had turned up nothing, and there were no other connected addresses in either city.

That just left Lakeside, and the invitation that Professor Hunter had sent to the Flash.

The signal was apparently coming from somewhere within five blocks of the car’s location. KCPD had cleared the whole area until Crystal and Joe found the source. The SWAT team would remain above Brandywine Street until given the go. The Flash was standing by somewhere on the Central City shore, and Cisco assured her that he could be on the scene in eleven point five seconds, maximum. Crystal hadn’t realised until later that this meant the Flash was capable of taking the shortest distance between the two points and running right over the lake itself.

Joe took another left, following a random track through the rigid streets, making sure that they weren’t passing the same point often enough for someone to notice. They’d just crossed 22nd Street when the needle on Cisco’s device flickered. Knowing the Flash worked with a guy who could rig a detector for particles most people thought were imaginary in less than an hour explained an awful lot of what she’d heard.

“Joe!”

Joe put his foot down and the car jumped to fifty. “Where?”

“Umm… left… straight… next right… straight… here!”

The car came to a stop just as the needle dipped again. Crystal waved it hopefully around. There was nothing on her side of the road but a vacant lot, which made it easier. The building on the far side had probably once been offices. The detector hadn’t quite dropped back to zero, every few seconds the readout flickered.

“That’s definitely the place,” Cisco said over the radio. “Where are you?”

“Nineteenth and Missouri,” Joe answered. “SWAT, come on down.”

“Three minutes.”

Crystal climbed out of the car to wait for them. The streets were empty and the noise from the rest of the city seemed very far away. She and Joe edged a few yards down the sidewalk until they could see what passed for the building’s entrance. ‘Locke Self Storage’ read the very unimaginative sign.

“One day,” Crystal muttered, “I’d like a case where we don’t have to go to an old warehouse.”

“You and me both,” Joe agreed.

SWAT arrived, and they slipped back towards the cars. As this was KCPD, Crystal did the talking.

“Sergeant, keep half your men down here watching the perimeter. The other half will come with us. We go in quietly.”

The sergeant counted off the group to remain outside and gave his orders.

“What if we do if the Flash shows up?” one of them asked.

That got a laugh. “Just don’t ask for his autograph,” the sergeant responded. “Any real questions? Good. After you, detectives.”

Joe took the lead. Crystal hooked the detector onto her jacket and attached an antenna to transmit the result directly back to STAR Labs. She clipped that to her belt and followed. None of the four-person SWAT squad showed any reaction to this, they just moved off in silence.

The group reached the building and tried the doors. The main entrance was locked, as was the slightly smaller customer door to the side. It only took a moment for the squad’s locksmith to get it open.

“Anything, Cisco?” Joe murmured.

“Nothing yet. Keep going.”

There was a small office a few yards from the main entrance. Again, the lock didn’t put up much resistance. Crystal slipped inside and found an accounts book.

“H. Solomon, unit on the fourth floor,” she reported. “Hired September third.”

“The day before the Mercury Labs robbery,” Joe said. “He’s not even trying to hide. Can you find a master key?”

The keys were easy enough to locate. They were in a locked box behind one of the filing cabinets, but the key for the box itself was in the desk. Crystal checked the unit reference and grabbed the right one.

There was an old, rickety elevator at the end of the main corridor. They climbed the fire stairs instead, holding at every floor to check for noises and any input from the lab.

“Readings are getting stronger,” Cisco reported when they reached the third floor. “There’s definitely something up there.”

“Any idea what?”

She heard the shrug. “Sorry.”

They arrived on the fourth. There was a little atrium in front of three large doors, each blocking off an area that Crystal assumed ran the length of the building, giving each tenant a storage unit about the size of a domestic garage. Hunter’s was the farthest to the right.

The squad went forward first, running electronic and chemical sniffers over the door as well as checking for good old fashioned wires. Crystal stood back and waited until they reported no trace of any explosives or anything like a detonator.

“Cisco?” she asked.

Caitlin answered. “No energy readings from anything like a bomb or a weapon.”

“Open it,” Joe said.

The unit door screeched and rattled as it was hauled upwards. Then silence. The SWAT made a final check of the doorway and advanced inside. Still nothing.

Crystal stepped passed Joe and got her first look at Solomon Hunter’s storage room. She’d been expecting almost anything, from piles of stolen property to a technological cave like the one they’d seen at Mercury Labs. But instead she entered something like a clean, well-organised home office. There was cheap but soft rug on the floor, a desk, a chair and a few filing cabinets. There was even a closet and a camp bed against the back wall, and a miniature refrigerator plugged into one of the power outlets. She supposed Hunter wasn’t the first guy to store himself in one of these places.

“Whatever’s causing the signal, you should only be a few feet away,” Cisco said.

“The closet.”

Crystal backed off as SWAT went to work again. She couldn’t see any signs of tampering, but they made sure. Then the two officers stood on either side of the closet while their colleagues shielded her and Joe, and the doors were yanked open nearly hard enough to rip off the hinges.

Nothing happened, and they peered inside.

The left hand side of the closet looked perfectly normal. There were a couple of shirts and even a pair of pants on hangers. She could also make out two neckties slung around the hangers and a battered pair of sneakers on the floor. She barely registered them, though, because of the thing that was taking up the rest of the space. It looked like a prop from a science fiction film, a two-foot tall tower of unrecognisable components climbing from a spider-web base to some sort of antenna at the top. The sight was made all the more bizarre by the fact that the device was plugged into a store-bought outlet strip and an old laptop.

Joe pointed his phone at the machine. “Are you getting this, Cisco?”

“Yeah. That’s definitely where the signal’s coming from. It’s probably a very basic tachyon generator spitting out a few at a time when it gets a signal from the laptop and –”

“Cisco!” Caitlin’s voice cut onto the line.

“What is it?” Joe demanded.

“We’re getting a particle surge. It’s a tachyon pulse. A big one.”

Crystal didn’t fully understand the words, but she understood the urgency. So did everyone else on the loop. The SWAT carbines came up as they formed a line.

“Where, Cisco?" 

“Not there,” Cisco answered. “Somewhere in Central. North of us. Wait, the signal’s changing. It’s getting stronger and heading… Jesus! Joe, he’s coming here!”

* * *

 Barry didn’t wait for Iris to confirm Cisco’s warning over the suit’s loop. He turned his back on the lake and bolted for STAR Labs.

“Seal off the Cortex!” he yelled.

He reached the parking lot in time to see the main doors open, and charged into the corridors. He didn’t bother asking for a location. There wasn’t time.

But Hunter was on Barry’s turf now. And Barry knew the long, winding corridors of STAR Labs as well as anyone. He’d run hundreds of impromptu courses through them as Wells had sought to teach him control as well as speed.

He took a side corridor at a hundred miles an hour, raced past the doors of the Cortex as they slid shut, and then turned and blasted down the main passageway to the entrance. Hunter wasn’t there. The Cortex wasn’t his target.

“Barry, the Pipeline!”

The detectors in the accelerator itself. Without them, they wouldn’t be able to track Hunter’s tachyon surges. Barry took the shortest cut he could think of, running straight down the side of the viewing gallery and through the Pipeline’s access point.

The yellow shape shimmered in front of the main door. Barry went straight for it. He saw it flicker and dodged the first blow, but the second caught knocked him backwards, giving Hunter time to open the door and dive through. Barry followed him, dropping into the open space of the Pipeline for the first time in months.

He almost smiled. The professor had made his first mistake. The accelerator had been built as a high-energy race track for particles, but it had been designed to allow the Flash the same freedom. There was nothing to slow him down in here, and Barry ran.

Hunter was already at one of the inspection panels, but Barry was on top of him in an instant. His fist broke the sound barrier, throwing a punch that Hunter had to flicker back to avoid. Oliver’s lessons flashed through Barry’s mind and he raised his other arm in time to feel something like an iron bar strike it. But he’d blocked Hunter’s attack and the other man retreated down the Pipeline.

Barry caught up to him an instant after Hunter reached the next hatch. He didn’t get time to do much more than open it before Barry aimed a kick at his knee and another punch at his head. Then he was gone again, flickering towards the final access point as Barry tore off in pursuit.

He almost overtook the golden shadow this time. As Barry caught up to him, Hunter threw a punch that Barry just had to lean back to avoid. But that slowed him down for long enough for his opponent to reach the detectors. Barry went for the legs again, taking advantage of the accelerator’s curving wall to sweep upwards towards them. The professor attacked Barry’s own knee, but was a fraction too slow this time. Barry glimpsed a fist sweeping down towards his head and instinctively sprang back, giving Hunter a window to get past him and head for the Pipeline’s main door.

Back in the lab corridors, Barry kept Hunter in sight, tracking him as he blurred down one passageway and then another. He didn’t know if Hunter was trying to shake the pursuit or if he was just lost. Either way, the yellow figure was never out of his sight until they reached one of the storerooms, where Hunter vanished for a second around a corner.

Barry had no idea what gave him the premonition. He jumped on instinct, and shot over Hunter’s attempt to trip him. But he was still moving so quickly and barely had time to stop before he crashed into the wall at the next junction. He darted back to see that Hunter had taken advantage to get the storage room open in the seconds he’d been allowed, and torn through the place like a tornado. Then the yellow shape flashed towards him, giving him no time to dodge a blow crashed into his gut like a train, and left him fighting to stand and breathe.

The gasp that followed was agony, but almost less painful than hearing Iris’ cry in his ear, “Barry!”

He heard the fear in her voice and knew Hunter was at the Cortex’s door. The lab corridors blurred around him. He ran on blind instinct, pushing as hard as he dared until the blasted through the wrecked remains of the main lab’s entrance.

Hunter stood where his friends had been sitting a moment ago. Cisco and Iris were directly in front of him, in the open space between the computer console and the side lab. Caitlin was behind them, her chair half way down the little ramp.

Barry bore down on Hunter, wanting him to stop, turn, do anything but keep going forward. He anticipated a blow, blocked it and ducked the second. That got Barry past, but as he turned to face the professor, a strike he hadn’t seen crashed into his jaw, flinging him backwards into Cisco and Iris, sending all three of them to the floor in a tangled, helpless heap.

And then the temperature plummeted.

The air, which had been so still, suddenly screamed into motion; a biting wind that roared over Barry and struck Hunter. The blurred figure was caught off balance, wavering in the heart of a miniature tornado as the freezing currents lashed at him.  

For the first time, Hunter seemed to hesitate. And Barry could see him quite clearly, no longer just the red halo and the distorted shape inside it, but the detail of the yellow suit – big and bulky like it was imitating idealised human musculature – and the insectile mask over Hunter’s face, as the cold pulled the kinetic energy from his accelerated molecules.

Barry threw himself forward, driving his fist out, and though Hunter started to twist away, Barry’s blow struck home hard and hurled the other man back. The yellow figure slumped in the doorway, and Barry kept going, but then Hunter blurred again and disappeared down the corridor. A split-second later, there was a crash as he hit the building’s main doors at high speed and then the golden shadow was gone.

Barry sagged. His head was still spinning. He pulled his mask off, stepped back into the Cortex, and saw something that nearly made him fall over again. It was Caitlin, standing over Iris and Cisco. Her arms were held out, her fingers twisted like daggers, and there was a terrible focus burning cold in her eyes. She’d lost some of her unnatural pallor, but her skin, her clothes, and her wind-blown hair glittered with tiny shards of ice.

Cisco, staring up at her, whispered something that Barry didn’t hear.

“Caitlin?” Barry said cautiously.

She slowly lowered her arms, adjusting something on her sleeve. The wind died, her expression softened, and she asked, “Are you alright?”

Barry just nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“We’re fine,” Iris echoed. “Caitlin, what did you do?”

Caitlin looked down at herself, and then back at the discarded chair. “I turned the suit’s heat collectors to a hundred percent. I wanted to slow him down.”

“You did,” Barry told her. “I don’t think I could have hit him without it.”

Cisco scrambled to his feet, still staring at Caitlin like he’d seen a ghost. “Are you… okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m fine, Cisco. But I think I still need my chair.”

Iris dragged it over and Caitlin dropped into it. The room temperature was rising back towards normal. The ice on her skin was already starting to melt.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cisco repeated cautiously. “Because that was really cool and also really freaky.”

Caitlin gave him an oddly thoughtful look, like there was part of the conversation that Barry wasn’t hearing. “I’m sorry I scared you. But I wasn’t going to let him hurt you. Or Barry and Iris.” She paused again, like she was bracing herself. “What did you call me?”

“What?”

“You called me something. What was it?”

Cisco shifted on his feet, looked awkwardly towards Barry and Iris and then down at Caitlin. “Killer Frost,” he said.

There was a moment’s silence between them. Barry quietly backed away, towards where Iris was calling Joe to let him know that Hunter had gone and everyone was okay.

Caitlin wheeled herself forward, parking directly in front of Cisco. “Is that _her_ name?” she asked.

Barry wasn’t sure he wanted to know who they were talking about. Cisco took a long moment to answer, “Yeah… Yeah, I think it is.”

Caitlin looked up at him, and then she smiled and gave an awkward half shrug. “It’s not bad. I’ll think about it.”

And, for no reason Barry could understand, Cisco dropped to his knees and threw his arms around her. Caitlin returned the hug, almost pulling herself out of the chair. They were both shaking, but it wasn’t with the cold; they were giggling to each other. “Seriously, that was awesome,” Cisco said, and Barry could have sworn he heard him add, “I love you too, Caitlin.”

Barry turned one of the chairs around and sat with his back to them. They’d have to deal with the consequences of Hunter’s attack, but that could wait a minute.

Iris smiled at him from the other chair, and glanced over his shoulder. Barry didn’t need to look to know that Caitlin and Cisco were still holding on to each other. “What was that about?” she asked.

Barry smiled back, stretched and closed his eyes. “I have absolutely no idea. But I think they’re okay now.”


	18. Hot Pursuit

Cisco walked down the Pipeline, finishing the complete loop of the accelerator to examining Hunter’s attempted sabotage. It had taken him half an hour, checking his phone and radio all the way, to discover the good-news-bad-news situation they’d been left in.

He clambered up towards the entrance hatch, wanting to be out as soon as possible. It was strange to think that the place had been more bearable when it was a prison. Now it was far too silent. He hadn’t come down here since the aftermath of the singularity, when he and Ronnie had collected the shattered remains of Wells’ time machine and dumped them in one of the backup storage rooms. The storage room that Hunter had broken into.

Barry met him at the entrance. He’d been cleaning up the mess that the fight had left in the Cortex and down here, while Caitlin went to the med lab with Iris and checked herself out. Caitlin would be okay, though; and after weeks of telling himself that, Cisco could finally believe it.

“So how was it?” Barry asked.

“It’s what I thought,” Cisco told him. “Thanks to you, he didn’t have time to do any damage to the detectors, but he knocked them out of alignment, so we’re going to have to do a complete recalibration before we can use them to find any more tachyon surges.”

“How long with that take?”

“A couple of days. Maybe a week.”

Barry went quiet. They’d arrived back in the storage room, where Iris and Caitlin were looking around. Barry had actually done a good job of reorganise everything according to the chart in the corner. It just made the missing pieces that much more obvious.

“Do you know what he took?” Caitlin asked, and he could see she’d guessed the answer herself.

“Wells’ tachyon generator,” Cisco said.

“What can he do with that?” Iris asked.

“If he builds it into the suit,” Barry replied, “he won’t need his accelerator anymore, will he? He can just use it any time and anywhere. Right?”

Cisco wondered if he should be feeling bad right now. After all, being an engineer was all about contingency plans and fail-safes, no matter where you go the idea from.

“Right,” he said. “He’s going to do that, and it’s going to lead us right to him.”

“What?” Barry exclaimed. “How? You said the detectors won’t be ready.”

“We don’t need the detectors now,” Cisco explained. “When I figured that the professor was setting a trap, I wondered if maybe he wanted the Flash out of the way so he could come here and take the tachyon generator from the sphere. Because that’s what Wells would do.” He took a breath. “So I did something else Wells would do. I put a trap for him in his trap for us. Last night I came down and made a few adjustments to the generator.”

“What sort of adjustments?” Caitlin asked.

“Nothing big. I still want to see that guy’s face when Joe throws him in jail.” He managed a smile. “When he starts using the generator, it’ll put out an EM frequency that’ll mess with any nearby power lines. Just enough to trigger an alert in the power company’s control system.”

“That’s great, man,” Barry said, but he must have seen the strain in Cisco’s smile. “Hey, being able to figure out what a bad guy’s going to do doesn’t make you anything like him.”

“He’s right,” Iris agreed. “There are people who get paid to think like criminals every day. They’re called cops.”

Their smiles made Cisco’s easier. He remembered the weird calm he’d felt, fiddling with the generator in the middle of the night, like the professor’s plans were just another problem to be solved. He could think like Wells, but he hadn’t hurt anyone, or lied to them, and he still didn’t want to. He’d just done what he could to make sure Solomon Hunter went to jail. He hadn’t let his friends down when they needed him this time.

“We should get to the Cortex,” Caitlin said. “We may not have much time.”

“What about Joe?” Barry asked.

“My dad’s still checking out Hunter’s storage room,” Iris said. “In case he left something behind.”

Cisco half expected Barry to race ahead, but he kept in step with them and the chair as they went back up to the Cortex. Cisco used the time to re-run the guesses he’d made; what he’d do in Hunter’s place. He wouldn’t go straight back to his base, in case the Flash was following, he’d probably go somewhere else as a decoy, then head home by a random route.  Then, once he was back and knew he was safe, he’d check the accelerator to make sure it was ready in case he needed it in a hurry. Then he’d go over the tachyon generator, figure out as many of the parts as he could until he knew how to operate it. He’d make sure nothing looked odd or out of place or like it had been intentionally damaged. Then he’d try running it at minimum output, just to see what happened, ramping the power up until it was at full and monitoring absolutely everything the device did. Then he’d interface it with the suit and do a low power test.

Cisco hoped they got to him before he reached that stage of the process. Otherwise they might be back to square one again. It had also occurred to him that Hunter might be desperate enough to do his initial checks at super-speed; but even if he was, he’d have to decelerate to interface the generator with his equipment and do the test runs.

Caitlin gave him a nervous look as he switched the Cortex computers back on. But they powered up without any problems.

“Relax,” he told her. “You didn’t give them frost bite. Although, now I think about, if you don’t like the other name –”

“No,” Caitlin told him.

He grinned. Behind him, the computer pinged. He spun the chair as Iris and Barry leaned past his shoulders.

“Interference reported in the power delivery node at Seventeenth and Polk,” he read.

Caitlin went to work on the other computer. “The university has an old lab complex on Polk.”

“It hasn’t been open for a year,” Iris added. “They’re trying to sell it.”

Cisco dragged his hands through his hair. “Of course. And it’s right on the line Professor Zoom took when he came here.”

“It says this was seven minutes ago,” Barry said.

Cisco looked down at the report and cursed. “I’m sorry, man, I didn’t realise there’d be a delay. We need to go right now.”

“We?” Caitlin exclaimed.

Cisco looked up at Barry. “You’ve got to take me with you. I might be able to stop his accelerator, and whatever else he’s got, but I’d have to be there.”

“You can’t just run in there,” Iris pointed out. “He’d be expecting that.”

Barry straightened up. “You’re sure, Cisco?”

He braced himself and answered, “Yeah. Sure. I’m not terrified at all.”

He felt what was becoming a familiar chill. Caitlin had taken his hand.

“Just be careful,” she murmured. “Both of you.”

“I’ll call my dad,” Iris said.

Barry pulled his hood up, looked at Cisco and grinned. And before Cisco could let out the breath he’d been holding, the lightning was all around him.

He had no impression of speed at all. It was like he was floating, absolutely still, while the streets of Central City screamed past in a confused, crackling rush. Then the world stopped again, and he stumbled forward against the wall of an alleyway opposite the university lab’s entrance.

It was an ugly building, the exact opposite of STAR Labs’ glamour, built in a time when the money was running out and the architects only knew how to use set squares.

“Okay,” he whispered to Barry. “You stay here. I’ll check the front door. Radio silence.”

He did his best to look relaxed as he crossed the road towards Hunter’s hideout. He couldn’t see any cameras and hoped that whatever the man was doing, he was too busy to watch his fence. Cisco didn’t have his portable tachyon detector, and there wasn’t much in his pockets beyond his folding screwdriver set, a Maglite, an ammeter, some wire cutters and an improvised EM field detector. He pulled that out once he got to the door and watched the display flicker. The building might look dead but there was something in there using energy.

He checked the door for any visible wires and then put the ammeter against the lock. No current. Hopefully that meant no booby traps. He braced himself and pushed it open. No shocks, no explosions, and no alarms.

He waved with his free hand and Barry appeared beside him. “Are you crazy?” Barry hissed. “You should’ve let me do that.”

“And who was going to save you if something happened?” Cisco responded.

They stepped into the corridor. The detector danced. Cisco closed his eyes and pictured where he’d have set up in this building. Probably one of the cleanrooms, with space to use for component assembly and easy access to the building’s power grid. When he looked around, he saw a sign for computer science.

There was something pretty ridiculous about the sight of Barry creeping along at his side. The Flash suit hadn’t been designed for stealth. Barry didn’t seem to notice; for most of the trek through the building, he was silent.

“What’s up, man?” Cisco whispered.

Barry blinked, looked around and said, “I think I know how to stop Hunter. When I was fighting him in the Pipeline, I had a space to hit him on the move. But I still wasn’t really fast enough. How fast would I have to be going to match his speed?”

Cisco shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Cisco,” Barry said quietly.

He hadn’t bought it. Cisco didn’t blame him. He’d done some casual calculations in his head, but they’d become a lot less casual after Hunter had killed someone.

“Fast,” Cisco told him. “Professor Zoom is moving at somewhere between two-fifty to three hundred times normal speed. To do that you’d have to get your ground state, that’s like your ‘zero’ speed, up to almost the speed of sound. To get that kind of vibration in your molecules… we’re talking running at Mach Five, at least. That’s covering a mile every second.”

“So why aren’t you saying how awesome that’ll be?” Barry asked.

“Because it’s not just the run,” Cisco admitted. “It’s every molecule in your body vibrating at the same speed as his do. But without the tachyon field to contain it. I just… I don’t know what’ll happen if you go that fast. It might tear you apart.”

“Dust in a red costume,” Barry muttered.

That’s what Felicity had asked, a long time ago. Would that be what happened if Barry ran too fast? Cisco hadn’t realised she’d spoken to him about it as well.

“I just don’t know,” Cisco said.

Barry shook himself. “Then let’s get this guy before we have to find out.”

The computer lab was on the second floor. There was no sound as they crept out of the stairwell. The lights were on inside and the door was open. Like someone was expecting them. Cisco checked the meter again; the readouts were really dancing now.

A few yards from the entrance, Barry held up his hand. Cisco reluctantly nodded. Then Barry vanished through the door. Cisco saw the light flash around the room for a few seconds. It stopped, leaving Barry in the doorway.

“There’s nobody here,” he hissed.

Cisco joined him. He hadn’t exactly been expecting Frankenstein’s lab, but this was anticlimactic. There was no sign of the professor or any of his equipment, just a few rows of computers; each one running some sort of program. Cisco didn’t recognise the purpose, but he guessed it was probably calculations of some kind. But the PCs weren’t burning nearly enough power to generate the readings he was seeing.

“There has to be something else.”

There was another blur of light by his side. Then Barry was standing on the opposite side of the room, next to a faint outline in the wall.

“I missed it the first time,” he said quietly.

One last check of the door, and this time they both went through together. It must once have been the computer lab’s cleanroom, designed to allow the assembly of sensitive components. The doors opened, lights came on, and they stepped behind the curtain into the professor’s inner sanctum.

Cisco dimly registered that the room’s walls had been lined with furniture plundered from the rest of the building. But his attention was caught and held by the structure in its centre. It looked like a giant, four-pronged tuning fork, each prong over eight feet tall and curving inwards around a central hub, where there was just enough space for a man to stand. This was Hunter’s accelerator chamber, where he’d stand to bombard the containment suit with the tachyons needed to power it.

“Wow,” he muttered.

“How do we turn it off?” Barry asked.

Cisco took a few steps closer to the thickest of the prongs. He had just enough caution left to poke it with his ammeter before he touched it. One of the panels opened, and he looked into a web of mismatched components and power conductors.

“Umm… give me a minute.”

He scuttled around the device to one of the other prongs, trying to map the functioning in his head. The base looked familiar, and only when he knelt down did he recognise a larger version of the original Mercury Labs tachyon prototype.

“Cisco…”

That made some sort of sense. The tachyons were generated at the base, and were conducted up the prongs by a similar containment method to the one from Project Ariadne, then they bombarded the suit itself in such a way that any which weren’t captured were simply sent around the same loop, drastically increasing the efficiency of…

“Cisco!”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“Move! It’s him!”

The readings on Cisco’s meter suddenly spiked. The lights flickered, and in the instant of darkness, something slammed into Barry and hurled him aside. Then the room was as bright as before, allowing Cisco to see the figure standing in front of him. The man in the yellow suit raised a heavy arm to strike, and Cisco wondered if he’d been living on borrowed time after all. Then Barry dragged Hunter away, smashing him into the far side of the lab.

The weight of Hunter’s suit absorbed most of the impact, and the man barely seemed to feel it, or the high-speed punches that followed. But it gave Cisco himself an opening. There was a panel on the nearest of the accelerator’s prongs, just where he thought it would be, that made the instruments he’d brought with him leap off the scale. The heart of the machine.

“Flash!” Cisco yelled, and as Barry turned, he banged his hand against the hatch. “Here!”

Barry gave him a split-second to leap away, and then exploded forward. Cisco felt the air pulse as his friend passed him, and his gut heaved as he realised what had happened. Barry had rammed his arm into the machine up to the elbow. His whole arm was vibrating, energy sparkling up and down it. The machine jerked and writhed, sparks exploding from its core. Then it let out a high mechanical shriek. The power readings died completely, and Barry dragged his hand free.

“Give yourself up, professor,” he said. “It’s over.”

Hunter raised his hands. For one beautiful moment, Cisco though he really was going to take off the mask and surrender. Then one of his hands twisted, he grasped at some invisible control at the waist of his suit, and shouted three words in the distorted voice that Cisco still heard in his nightmares.

“Not yet, _Flash_.”

Cisco had just enough time to see the yellow suit start to blur and to realise what that meant before something else in the room let out a siren wail. Then there was a terrible roar that threatened to crush him for a second before he felt Barry sweep him out of the room, down the stairs and into the street. They were outside, and Cisco was looking over Barry’s shoulder at the lab as all the windows on the second floor exploded outwards.

The blast crashed over them, rolled across the nearby buildings and into the distance, leaving behind the tinkle of shattered glass. In the unnatural silence that followed, Cisco realised that the few people nearby were running for cover. Barry let him down and he almost fell.

“The suit!” he exclaimed. “He’s put the generator in the suit!”

“He doesn’t need the accelerator anymore,” Barry muttered.

“Barry! Barry, what happened?” they both flinched at Iris’ voice through the radio.

“We were too late,” Barry answered. “The accelerator suit is complete. He got away.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Caitlin cut in. “I’m still reading the interference signal. It’s moving towards the lake. Four blocks away. Now five.”

Cisco’s eyes widened. The last piece clicked into place. They hadn’t been too late after all.

“He’s not at full speed yet,” he exclaimed. “The generator needs time to build up a full charge. And it’s still leaking. You’ve got time, man.”

“Barry, my dad’s on his way,” Iris reported. “He says he’ll be there in five minutes.”

Five minutes was an eternity to a speedster. Barry looked at Cisco, silently asking. Cisco looked back at him, unable to give an answer. For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Caitlin’s voice crackled over the link.

“Barry, you have to go now or Hunter will get away.”

“You can still catch him,” Cisco muttered.

Barry nodded. “Yeah. I can.”

“Good,” Caitlin said. “Now run that bastard down.”

* * *

Solomon Hunter fled through a world of statues.

The first time he’d dared leave the lab in the suit, the stillness had been terrifying. Now it was familiar. He was safe.

At the start, he’d thought the worst part was the silence. The only sounds had come from within the suit itself. The hiss of the air pumps, the hum of the conductors, the rush of his breath and the thud of his own heart. Even now, as the suit crept towards its new full power, there was very little sound, all of it fading into a low, distant moan.

Then there were the people. The speed difference turned them into mannequins. Frozen in the middle of careless actions. Not real. He could watch them for relative minutes, and the most motion he would see was eyelids crawl through blinks. They went on with their lives, unaware of the miracle of science passing them too quickly for their brains to even register it. He could do whatever he wanted to them, and they’d never know, never understand.

The accelerator had opened up a world where he could do whatever he wanted. He could take his inheritance and be gone in the blink of an eye. And there was no one who could stop him, no one who could even slow him down.

Until now.

Behind him, the cloud of debris from the lab explosion drifted through the air. How had he been found so quickly? The Flash had forced him to sacrifice all his research and test equipment in order to escape. But he still had his backups, and he still had his father’s clock. They must still be safe. Even the Flash couldn’t catch him once the suit was fully functional.

He stopped for breath, feeling the suit’s new weight dragging at him. He hadn’t been given the time create a proper interface or do any miniaturisation. Only his skill and experience had enabled him to get the tachyon generator working once he’d realised he’d been found. He’d also had the presence of mind to leave the accelerator online and in plain sight. The Flash and the boy he’d brought along had been so preoccupied by it that they hadn’t noticed him finishing the upgrade that made the accelerator redundant.

But why was he being hounded? He’d only reclaimed what was rightfully his. The money meant almost nothing, and they could have it and the jewels back if they were so important. They’d only been tests. The Flash should have learned his lesson at the museum. Nothing had been permanently damaged, the cop’s arm would heal, and the woman in the wheelchair had obviously survived. He’d given them all plenty of time to get out and it wasn’t his fault if they hadn’t taken it.

And Freddie Keaton, who’d smiled the day the steelworks had closed? He’d paid for his father’s sins, and for living the life that should have been Hunter’s. A patron of industry, a leader of his city, state and country, not a man in a half-built college scraping by from equation to equation on the generosity of students and grant committees, having to justify his worth every step of the way.

But at long last, from his work the army and with Mercury Labs, he’d assembled a way of restoring himself to what he should have been. What the world wouldn’t give him, he could take back. At last he had everything he’d deserved, and no would-be hero was going to make him give it up.

It seemed he would have to teach the Flash this lesson one more time. The city’s champion was a slow learner, coming down the street at a sluggish run. Hunter turned his back, knowing he could stay ahead, jogging past cars now stationary on the road and people frozen on the sidewalks.

Then something made him look back. The Flash was closer than he should have been, only half a dozen steps away. Hunter cursed the flawed generator that took so long to reach full power, and sprang back out of the way of the attack. The Flash’s blow went wide, and Hunter replied with a punch of his own. Except he’d been under a lot of strain and his arm was heavier than it should have been. Somehow, the Flash blocked the punch and Hunter felt a stab of pain in his elbow from something that definitely wasn’t a boxing move.

His legs were quicker than his arms, and he kicked out, catching the Flash in the thigh. The half-visible face twisted, but showed no other reaction as a fist stabbed into Hunter’s ribs.

The pain gave him adrenaline, and the adrenaline gave him speed. He no longer felt the strain as he stepped back and threw a combination of blows that the Flash could barely intercept. Two were blocked but the third, a perfectly aimed jab, crashed into the smaller man’s chest and knocked him back.

Hunter was hardly aware of the rattling of his breath inside the mask. He found a new position, weaved, and didn’t feel the kick to his leg as he crashed a fist into the Flash’s temple. The impact bounced his opponent off a car, giving him an opening to apply another jab and then a cross. Again, the Flash got his guard up, and there was another odd strike to Hunter’s elbow, but he hardly felt that.

Hunter opened the distance and the Flash came forward. Hunter’s blows skimmed off his guard, but the other man was still slowing as the generator finally came to full power. Hunter saw a split-second opening and went for it, slamming his hand into the Flash’s abdomen, the slight body almost curling up around his fist. He didn’t relent, throwing four messy punches to batter the Flash to his knees.

Triumph swelled through him, and fascination too. He stepped forward, seized the exposed chin, and wrenched the hood back.

It was a boy’s face. Almost a child’s. Wide, dark eyes and pure, unlined skin hardly marked at all by the scrapes and bruises of the fight.

“Stay down,” he hissed, not caring whether he was heard or not.

The Flash jerked his head back, twisted out of the grip and tried to rise. Hunter let out a roar of frustration, because a man should know when he’s beaten, and kicked the kid in the chest as hard as he could. The blow threw the Flash backwards, he tumbled over onto his side and lay still in the middle of the street.

Hunter gasped, his breath pulling at the air cycler, and stood his ground.

The boy in red pressed his gloves against the asphalt, pushed upwards, and staggered to his feet.

“It’s over!” Hunter roared. “You’re too slow!”

The Flash slowly raised his hands. Like someone with all the time in the world, he pulled his hood back up. His eyes met Hunter’s.

And then the famous Flash, the man who saved Central City, turned and fled.

Hunter waited, balanced and ready, waiting for some trick, but none came. The red costume disappeared between the buildings in the distance. Hunter sagged with relief, laughter ringing inside the mask. The Flash could take a beating, he’d give him that, but he obviously knew a losing fight when he saw one.

Hunter turned away. He walked down the street, past the last of its high-rises, to the edge of the lakeside park. He took his time. His arms were aching, his knuckles were bruised, and his knee protested with every step, but it didn’t matter.

He crossed the park and didn’t have to stop when he reached the far end. The lake was a solid as stone. He stepped onto it without fear and walked out across the water. He’d leave Central City behind forever, find a new name and make a new home. He had all the time he needed now. It must be possible to find a city somewhere that wasn’t infested with vigilantes. Gotham, perhaps.

Then the air throbbed around him. He’d never felt anything like it before, as if the whole world pulsed with the beat of a single, gigantic heart. The feeling faded, but left a tremor of unease intruding into his static world. And it was getting stronger.

He looked up, down the corridor of water between the twin cities, and saw a flare of light that wasn’t a reflection of the sun. Something was rushing over the lake, something bright and brilliant, crackling with energy as it hurtled towards him faster than he could imagine.

He tried to move, to run, but it was too late. Even in his accelerated state, there was no time to react. There was only an instant to grasp the truth as Hunter looked into the lightning and saw the flash of scarlet at its heart.

The boy wasn’t afraid.

The fastest man alive was taking a run-up.


	19. The Flash of the Lightning

Barry ran.

He left downtown behind him, raced out into the half-empty suburbs, crossed them in seconds, shot around the base of the interstate, and, his path clear of urban obstacles, really started to accelerate.

The air around him pulsed, roared, and then fell silent. He could see the sonic boom rippling away behind him as he doubled the speed of sound and then reached out to treble it. The world outside became a blur, rocketing past him like he was in flight.

But that wasn’t what he wanted. He fought back, feeling the motion singing through his whole body, the lighting arcing through him, jumping from molecule to molecule until he felt like a being made of light and fire. It crackled through his mind too, searing at his senses, driving them faster and faster, higher and higher as his speed continued to climb.

He could feel himself again. He could feel the weight of each step, the impact through his knees, the pressure on his hips. He felt the turn of his shoulders as his arms pumped. He could feel the rush of the air in and out of his lungs, the thud of his heartbeat, so slow and regular even though it must have been beating thousands of times a second. He could see Central City passing him by, recognising the landmarks of his home; they helped keep him on the right track as he roared around the city, curving back towards it as the skyline retreated and he came level with its farthest edge.

He could feel the Speed Force too. It was out there, reaching for him, dragging at him like the currents of a mighty river. He struggled against it, pulling it back, channelling the energy through himself, using it to drive him ever faster. Mirages flickered around the edge of his vision, ghosts of past and future, but he wouldn’t be distracted. Here and now was where he needed to be. Here with Iris, with Caitlin and Cisco. In a time and place where a man called Solomon Hunter had to be stopped.

The world cleared, and the long arc was complete. He turned back towards where he had started, around the city’s inside edge, using the river as wide, clear path that guided him to his target. Hunter was nearly half way across the lake, caught in the open and with nowhere left to run.

He saw Barry coming, but their field was level now and he only had enough time to brace himself for the attack. Barry picked his moment, his target and his motion, and at the last instant, cut sideways from Hunter’s left to his right, ignoring the bulky protection of the suit’s body and slamming a fist into the meat of Hunter’s dominant arm. The impact spun the other man around, off balance, and Barry rushed forward to strike at his left side, landing two jabs to the ribs before a clumsy right hook drove him back.

He feigned a retreat, but it only lasted a step. He came forward again, driving his foot into the same knee that he’d kicked earlier, and the big man lurched as his leg threatened to fold. His right arm was raised, and Barry slipped beneath it, delivering three blows to the kidneys before he sprang back again.

He allowed Hunter just a microsecond of recovery, then rushed straight towards him. He had time to see the shoulders flex and the big left hook swung out, as he’d known it would. He caught the blow with a high guard that would have made Joe proud and then struck at the elbow and shoulder.

Hunter staggered, barely keeping his arms up, barely staying on his feet. His entire body was trembling and Barry wondered if he could imagine the high whine coming from the suit. Barry stared at him, uncomprehending, and then he remembered what Cisco had said, what he’d forgotten, and understanding dawned. Hunter wasn’t Wells. He wasn’t even a speedster. He was just man in a suit. And he was exhausted.

Barry smiled. It was time to end this. He slipped almost effortlessly around the remains of Hunter’s guard and threw a perfectly aimed jab into the taller man’s face. The mask buckled, the head went back, and as it did so Barry’s hands shot down into the seams of the yellow suit and pulled as hard as he could.

He nearly fell backwards and Hunter had just enough strength to throw him aside, but the suit was torn open, a jagged gash running from sternum to navel. Barry could see the components inside, shimmering in their protective energy fields. He thought he glimpsed the edge of the tachyon generator, off centre above the liver. A network of control circuitry expanded upwards from the abdomen, half of it made from components stolen from Mercury Labs.

The suit held his attention for an instant that was nearly fatal. Hunter threw himself forward, and Barry bent desperately backwards to dodge the blow. But the attack cost Hunter his remaining balance and all that Barry had to do was step into the opening and wrench at the suit’s lining, tearing it open completely.

Then Hunter’s boot crashed into Barry’s hip, knocking him backwards. Barry sprang away, keeping his balance and opening the distance. Hunter went back too, until they were five steps apart. The blank mask looked down at the zigzag slash in the suit. The heavy, trembling arms came back up to the guard, covering the most precious part of the tachyon channel, and showing Barry exactly where he needed to strike.

Barry took a moment, remembered what he’d learned from Oliver and Eddie, planned, guessed, smiled again, and attacked. Hunter’s right arm came forward to meet him, but he battered it aside with his left palm and half jumped into a right cross that crashed into the mask, ripping it away completely. Hunter reeled backwards, eyes and mouth open in shock, lungs gasping at the static air. But Barry had no time to focus on the face of his enemy; he found his stance as Hunter lurched around, and concentrated on his own right hand, fighting against the energy crackling through it.

In a battle where everything was vibrating at such impossible speeds, Barry’s fist became the most solid object in the world as he forced the excess kinetic energy out of its molecules and drove it into the heart of the accelerator suit.

The tachyon core exploded into fragments, and the particles froze in the air. They shimmered in front of Barry like dust motes. Hunter’s whole body went still. The red aura had vanished for the last time. His eyes were still wide, his mouth still open, but now he hung, suspended half way through a fall, like he had been turned to stone.

Barry walked slowly around him. It was hard to say, but the sudden drop back out of accelerated time didn’t seem to have done any damage. Of course, they were still in the middle of the lake. For a moment, Barry was tempted to head back to shore and leave the professor to swim. But the man was injured, worn out, and still wearing a lot of heavy equipment.

So Barry reached out and rested a hand against the still abdomen. No reaction. He applied a little bit of pressure, and Hunter floated backwards a few inches, almost as if he were weightless. Barry pushed harder, and took a step forward. The frozen man came with him. He made one last check for damage, and then found the best site for leverage and walked back to Central City, shoving Hunter in front of him like an enormous novelty balloon.

By the time they reached the shore, his arm was starting to ache, on top of all the other little pains that the fight had left him. The park was still, and now that he was back in the city, Barry noticed for the first time the gaping hole in the world where the sound should be. He’d outrun sound before, but there had always been something left. Now there was nothing. It was like he was utterly alone.

They were out in the open, in sight of the road. He picked a clear spot to leave Hunter, just in case, and walked away from him. He closed his eyes and tried to find his way back to the world where things could be measured in miles per hour, not kilometres per second.

He concentrated, listening hard. There was something. A long, low hum on the very edge of his hearing, like a speaker relaying dead air. He tried to focus on it, get closer to it. The volume grew for a second, and then faded again, leaving him with nothing at all.

Then he realised he couldn’t feel the lightning anymore. There was no sense of speed, or energy, or anything propelling him. He felt normal, the same as he would if he were strolling down the street. He couldn’t even feel the Speed Force.

No, that was wrong. It was still there, but it was different now. Before, it had been a current, dragging at him, sweeping him onwards. Now it was like the sea. Vast, impossibly powerful, and he was lost in it so deeply that he couldn’t remember how to find the surface, let alone the shore.

He opened his eyes and everything was still the same. Silent. Still. Leaves static in the wind he couldn’t feel, dust motes immobile in the air, clouds unchanging in the sky.

Had this been waiting for him all along? Was this the final fate of a speedster? One day they went too fast and couldn’t remember how to slow down?

Part of him wanted to fall down where he was and just stay there forever; however long forever had become. But he was still Barry Allen, and he’d never been very good at staying still. So he started walking again, one silent step after another, up out of the park and into the city.

The people were waiting for him. They might have been frozen in place, but they were real. He wasn’t alone. Despite the oncoming winter, it was still a Sunday morning, and some were coming towards the park. Others were just doing a bit of weekend shopping in the fashionable lakeside stores. 

Then he saw a familiar car at the nearest intersection, and jogged towards it. It hardly seemed to move. He could just stand level with the driver-side window and bend down to look. Joe’s face was fixed with concentration as he braced himself to cross the junction at speed. Crystal Frost, in the passenger seat, was holding the radio. The speedometer read fifty, but the car was only inching forward.

“Hey, Joe,” Barry whispered, feeling the words but not really hearing them. “I got him. He’s waiting for you.” Then he walked around to the other side. “Look after him, Crystal. He’s lost a lot. He’s going to need a good partner now.”

He straightened up stepped back into the intersection. The lights were on Joe’s side, there was no one on the crosswalks.

But he spotted a little girl on the sidewalk. It looked like she’d been about to step out when her mother had seen the police car and pulled her back. In the process, the girl had lost her grip on the snowman-from- _Frozen_ balloon in her free hand, and was desperately grasping for it as it rose out of reach. Barry walked over to her, hopped into the air and pulled the balloon down. Then he bent down and looped the string around her wrist. Cisco’s gloves allowed him just enough dexterity to tie a basic knot.

“There you go,” he told the girl, and went on his way.

The distraction had given him time to think, and he knew where he wanted to go now. He walked back into the city, heading for the familiar spires on the edge of downtown.

The first landmark was the jewellery store where this case had started. There was a young man outside, not much older than Barry, staring through the window with an odd kind of focus. Barry stepped closer and then smiled; he was looking at a display of engagement rings.

“Good luck, dude. I hear most women like something simple.”   

He passed a cluster of students at the tables outside Jitters, wrapped up in sweaters and caffeine, arguing what he assumed was early-modern history. Someone else was so desperate for their fix that they’d shoved aside a trainee barista who was trying to get through the door with the group’s orders. Barry gently re-balanced his tray, and, after a moment’s consideration, left the guy who’d pushed him alone. Everyone behind the counter had seen what happened, and Barry knew how important it is not to upset the people who make your drinks.

There was a church on one of the last corners before he reached the labs. Barry had wondered for a while whether that was just a coincidence. People alone, together, in families, were going through the arched doors in their Sunday Best. In a niche beside the entrance was a replica of a famous statue: a mother cradling her dying son.

A lesson came back to him, something Joe had quoted a long time ago. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Barry wondered if the impossible had a patron saint. He wondered if he’d ever have the chance to ask.

STAR Labs was quiet, but at least that was familiar. He hoped he wasn’t imagining the pleasant cool of the corridors. He found Cisco half way down one of them, stopped in mid-step, running for the Cortex. He was nearly there, it would probably only take him another hour, Barry-time, to get through the doors.

Barry pulled his hood back. “Well… I’m not dust. I know you can’t hear this, Cisco, but… it’s been awesome. Everything I did, you were right there with me. You’re just as much a hero as I am.”

He went on to the Cortex. Caitlin, leaning forward in her chair, was focussed on the computers with her usual laser-like intensity. Iris was next to her, her hair flying as her head turned, fear and pain written across her face. Seeing her look helpless was so rare, and he hated it. He’d give anything to be able to take her hand and tell her that things would be different, that this time she wouldn’t lose him.

But perhaps there was a chance that he could get a message to her. A moment to adjust the suit’s transmitter and Barry pulled up his mask to speak clearly into the microphone.

“I… I hope you can hear me, guys. If you can, then Cisco did a great job slowing the backup recording down enough to play. If not… then I guess it doesn’t matter.” He took a breath, trying to arrange the jumble of thoughts in his head. “I just want you to know that I’m okay. I’m still here. I’m just… fast now. I guess I’ve got to make this quick, I don’t know how long the connection will last, but I wanted to say that you guys were great. You’ve always been great. Without any of you, I wouldn’t be the Flash.” He blinked a few times, and knelt down, so he could let himself pretend Iris could see him. “Iris… Iris I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save Eddie. And I’m sorry I lied to you. About everything.

“Tell Joe… tell him he was a great father. And tell my dad that I’m sorry I can’t visit him anymore. But tell him that I will always be proud that I am Henry Allen’s son.”

He straightened up, trembling, fighting the tears in his eyes, and paced around the room as if he just throw the pain off.

“I hope… God, I hope we think of something… I don’t know how long I’ll stay like this, or what’ll happen to me, but I need you guys to know that I’m still here. And as long as I am, Central City will be safe. You will all be safe. You may not be able to see me, but whatever it takes, I will be there for you… for as long as I can.”

* * *

Iris felt the sonic boom rattle the building, and then every readout on her display went dead. One minute, Barry had been looping around the perimeter Central City, his path straightening out and his speed rising faster than the instruments could follow. Then the telemetry had dropped to zero.

“Barry!” she called into the radio. “Barry? Caitlin, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Caitlin responded. “Maybe the boom shook something loose.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. But Iris didn’t have the chance to press, Caitlin was focussed on the incomprehensible data in front of them.

Iris tried the radio again. “Barry? Barry, come in!”

Footsteps pounded in the corridor outside. Caitlin didn’t look up. “Cisco!” she shouted. “We’ve lost Barry!”

Cisco staggered into the room. Iris guessed he’d run flat out from where Barry had dropped him off before turning to fight Professor Hunter.

“What do you mean, ‘lost him’?” he gasped.

Caitlin made a sweeping gesture to the computers in front of her. “We aren’t getting anything from him or the suit. Is the receiver damaged?”

Iris forced herself to stay still as Cisco leaned over Caitlin to use the keyboard. It had to be just a technical fault. She couldn’t think about the alternative.

“No…” Cisco breathed. “It’s not the receiver. The suit’s not answering its ping.” He took another breath. “How fast was he going?”

The answer gave Iris something to focus on. “Two thousand, seven hundred and four miles per hour,” she read.

“Mach three point five,” Cisco said. He dropped into the spare seat and raked his hands through his hair. “I told him… that if he wanted to keep up with Professor Zoom, he’d have to be vibrating at nearly the speed of sound, and to get that much energy he’d have to run at least five times that fast. But… I didn’t know what would happen if he did.”

“What could happen?” Iris asked.

Caitlin looked at Cisco. “It’s possible that his molecules would become unstable,” she said. “That much energy might cause his body to lose cohesion.”

“No!” Iris spat. “No! He wouldn’t just… disintegrate.”

“Maybe he didn’t,” Cisco muttered. “He might have… gotten lost.”

“What do you mean?”

Cisco sighed. “Wells said that the Speed Force can take you to other places. Other times. That’s how Barry went back to the night his mom died. Maybe… Barry’s out there… somewhere.”

Iris shook her head again, trying to shake the tears out of her eyes. Barry, her Barry, lost and alone in an alien time. The Flash, standing on Plymouth Rock waiting for the Pilgrims to land. Or in the shadow of an enormous dinosaur. Or on a blasted wasteland beneath a bloated, dying sun.

She shook the visions away and fumbled with her phone. Maybe Barry was just with her dad, watching him arresting Hunter. The line buzzed and buzzed, and went to voicemail. She tried again and again.

Caitlin and Cisco watched her silently. She knew that look. She hated that look.

“No,” she said again. “He wouldn’t leave me. He promised. He has to be alive. He’s run that fast before, hasn’t he?”

“He could have done,” Cisco said. “When he closed the singularity. But it’s not like any of us were watching the instruments at the time.”

“Cisco,” Caitlin whispered. “ _Please_.”

“I don’t know!” Cisco shot back. “I guess… maybe… I don’t know… if his molecules adapted to that level of vibration. Of course that completely defies the Laws of Thermodynamics, but then this is _Barry_ we’re talking about.”

“What does that _mean_?” Iris demanded.

Cisco took a breath, knelt in front of her and took her hands. “Okay… Barry might be alright. He had to get his whole body vibrating at the same speed as Professor Zoom so he could fight him. It’s possible that he couldn’t get rid of that energy afterwards, so he’s still moving that fast.”

“So where is he?” Iris asked.

“He could be anywhere,” Caitlin said gently. “At that speed, we’d never know. He’d be moving too fast for anyone to see, like Professor Hunter was.”

Iris pulled her head up and looked around the room, hoping against hope for a flash of red in the corner of her eye.

“He might not even be here,” Caitlin whispered.

“Of course he is!” Iris shouted. “Where else would he go? I am not giving up on him! Cisco, there has to be something you can do to find him.”

Cisco straightened up. “I don’t know. I guess I could put something together, but I’d have to be real quick. I mean, if he’s going that fast then from his point of view we’ve been having this conversation for a couple of hours and there’s no telling…” He tailed off, staring at something behind her. “Hey, Caitlin… are the security monitors still showing a live feed?”

“Yes,” Caitlin answered. “We never turned them off after the attack. Why?”

“I thought I saw something,” Cisco replied, his voice faint and distant.

Iris turned. Cisco was staring at one of the Cortex’s smaller displays. His body blocked whatever he was looking at. And as she watched, he hunched over slightly, and started trembling. Iris turned back to Caitlin, and met a look of total incomprehension.

And then Cisco let out a whoop of triumphant laughter. “Barry Allen you _son of a bitch_!”

He bolted from the room. “Cisco!” Caitlin shouted after him. “Cisco!” She turned back and made several impatient stabs at the computer, pulling the image from the monitor onto one of their screens. “Oh my god…” she whispered.

Iris looked over her shoulder. The screen showed the passageway leading up to the particle accelerator. At the far end, in front of the entrance to the Pipeline, the Cold Tap had miraculously reassembled itself.

Caitlin’s face bloomed into a full, beaming smile that Iris knew matched her own. “Barry…”

“Go!” Caitlin said.

“Not without you,” Iris responded. “Hang on.”

She yanked the levers on Caitlin’s chair so it could freewheel. Then she seized the handles at the back and pushed as hard as she could. They skidded out into the corridors, Iris struggling to keep the chair pointed down the main passage. Caitlin shrieked as they lurched around a bend, but Iris thought she heard a little thrill under the terror. Caitlin’s heels were woefully unsuited for emergency breaking, and Iris barely managed to stop before they slammed into the elevator doors. The button had already been pushed and there was a clattering from the fire stairs as Cisco barrelled down them. Iris hoped he made it to the bottom in one piece.

The elevator ride seemed to take forever. Iris felt Caitlin brace herself as soon as the doors started opening and they bounced out into the particle accelerator’s access corridors, finally coming to a stop in sight of the doorway that held such terrible memories for them both.

“Don’t come any closer!” Cisco yelled. “Just stay back, okay?”

He was pressed against the corridor wall, edging around the outside of the Tap’s conductors. Iris fought the urge to yell at him to hurry, he was clearly moving as fast as he dared, but the checks of each plinth were slow and careful. She looked around, wondering if Barry was in the corridor with them.

Finally, Cisco squeezed around the last of the plinths and rushed down the ramp to the Tap’s generator. He made a few indistinct noises and then waved Iris and Caitlin back. All three of them retreated to the corridor junction.

“Okay, man!” Cisco shouted into the air. “On three! One, two, three!”

He hit the switch and ducked around the corner. There was a wail from the direction of the Tap, and then a burbling roar like water boiling. Patterns of reflected light danced on the passageway walls. Cisco risked a look, and Iris joined him. Caitlin dragged herself up and hung between them so she could see as well. They squinted into the glare as a wave of blue-white energy bounced back and forth between the Tap’s conductors. The energy shivered as though it had hit something they couldn’t see, then the light level suddenly dipped and they could see red mixing with the blue.

“It’s working!” Cisco exclaimed.

The red light was indistinct, and seemed to be everywhere inside the Tap at once. It brightened in some places, faded in others, and slowly started to condense. Seconds ticked past and the Tap’s own energy got brighter and brighter. For a moment, it seemed as if there were two red men standing in the Tap and then they shimmered and fused as there was a final pulse of light and a shower of sparks from the plinths.

The energy died completely. Iris blinked desperately at the coloured blots. For a moment, it was like there was a large, extra one, then her eyes focussed. Barry was lying on the floor.

She was by his side before she could think, ignoring Cisco’s shout. She seized Barry’s hand, clinging to it as tightly as she could. It hummed in hers. His entire body was still vibrating.

“No,” she whispered. “No, stay with me. Come on, Barry, come on. Stay.”

Caitlin fell to her knees on Barry’s other side. She pulled his mask back. His eyes were closed, but flickering wildly under their lids. She pressed her fingers against his throat and hissed to herself.

“Keep talking to him,” she ordered.

Iris bent her head to Barry’s ear, kept her grip on his hand and whispered, “Barry, stay with me, Barry,” over and over again.

She barely registered that Caitlin was speaking too. “Barry? Barry, can you hear us? It’s Caitlin and Iris. Barry, concentrate on our voices. You’re still moving too quickly. You need to slow down. Listen to Iris. You can hear her Barry. I need you to slow down till you can understand her.”

The tingling against Iris’ hand started to fade. The suit lost its unnatural shimmer.

“That’s good,” Iris whispered. “Come back, Barry, come back to me. You promised you wouldn’t leave me again. You promised. Come back to us.”

The muscles in his hand relaxed. His eyelids stopped flickering. The hum of his body against the floor faded away.

Caitlin pulled back part of the suit to reach Barry’s neck, feeling under his chin again. Her face was flat with concentration. “Barry, can you hear me?”

“Caitlin?” It was barely a gasp, barely a whisper, but it was a word. “Your… hands… are really cold.”

“Barry?” Iris gasped.

His head slowly turned to one side. His eyes half opened and half focussed. His lips lifted into a smile and his hand squeezed hers. “Iris.”

Caitlin flopped backwards, her smile dancing as she caught Cisco’s hand. Iris let out a sob of relief and curled up beside Barry, pressing her head against the lightning bolt on the suit. She could feel his heart again, thumping quickly, but not too quickly. His arm came around to rest on her shoulders. They were on a metal floor that was freezing cold, but she could worry about that later.

“I thought I'd lost you too,” she murmured.

She felt Barry smile and shake his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

Joe accelerated down Harrison Avenue towards the lake and the last location Iris had given them for Barry and Hunter. They were two blocks away from the park when something like a bolt of horizontal lighting blasted over the water and disappeared in a flash of light and a clap of impossible thunder.

“What the hell was that?” he exclaimed.

Crystal gave him an alarmed look. He barely had enough time to register it before slamming the car to a halt on the sidewalk beside one of the park’s entrances. A crowd of pedestrians had gathered, gesturing at the lake and taking photographs. The water was churning, waves sloshing against the parkside embankments and onto the grass itself. Another wave front was sweeping towards the Keystone shore.

“You’ve never seen anything like this before, have you?” Crystal asked.

Joe shook his head. He looked down into the park. Everyone else was still focussed on the lake; hardly any of them had noticed the figure crumpled on the grass.

Joe pushed past the crowd and ran down the slope. Crystal was only a step behind him. A few people were cautiously approaching the fallen man.

“CCPD!” Joe yelled. “Stay back! Back away!”

The walkers looked up, saw the badge, and backed off. Joe got between them and the man on the ground, just as he tried to get to his feet. Professor Solomon Hunter, battered, bruised, wide-eyed, and in the tattered remains of a yellow suit.

“Police! Stay where you are!”

Hunter shuffled around. His eyes focussed on Joe and his mouth twisted into a snarl.

Joe drew his gun. “Don’t move!”

Hunter took a single step forward, and just collapsed. He landed heavily on his knees and almost folded over. His hands scrabbled at the ruins of his suit and then fell to his side.

“Crystal, I’ll cover him,” Joe said. “Can you cuff him?”

Crystal smiled. “You’re damn right I can.”

She held one of Hunter’s arms and pulled the other one behind his back. Joe had to admire her dexterity with the handcuffs as she snapped them onto his wrists.

“Solomon Hunter,” she said, “you’re under arrest on suspicion of grand theft, assault and murder. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”

“I understand,” Hunter replied, with no emotion in his voice at all.  

Joe took over, holstered his gun, and dragged the professor upright. They marched him past the gathering onlookers, up the ramp and to the car. Cell phones documented the entire walk. Joe could already tell there were going to be a dozen blog theories on this by Monday morning, although he couldn’t imagine any of them being as weird as the truth.

They got a passing uniform to help persuade the crowd to move on, then to go down and start cordoning off the area where they’d found Hunter. They’d just made sure the man himself was secure in the back of the car when Joe felt his phone buzz. Four calls from Iris.

He took a few steps away from the car and called her back. No answer. He gave it a single nervous minute and then called again.

“Daddy?”

She sounded okay, but there was a tremor in her voice. “Sweetie, what happened?”

“It’s… um…” she hesitated, poised on the line between his little girl and a grown woman. “Barry gave us a scare. But he’s fine now.”

“Is that Joe?” Barry’s voice in the distance. “Yeah, I’m okay. Really.”

Joe relaxed. “You’re going to tell me all about this later, okay?”

“Okay,” Iris answered.

“Good. We’ve got Professor Hunter. We’re taking him to the station now.”

“I’ll tell him,” Iris said. “Great job, dad.”

“You too, Iris. Tell everyone else they did great. We couldn’t have got him without all of you.”

“I will. I love you, daddy.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

He hung up and walked back towards the car. His kids were safe, and he was proud to be their father.

Crystal was watching him from the passenger side. She saw his smile and gave him one of her own.

“STAR Labs?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Barry okay?”

“Yeah,” Joe said, “he’s… fine.”

And then he realised what she’d asked, and what he’d just told her.

Crystal’s expression flickered for a second. She walked around the car and leant on the hood.

“It’s the way you talk about him,” she said conversationally. “Like he’s your son. Then there’s the voice. Whatever he does with it doesn’t hide everything. I’ve never met anyone else who sounds so… kind.”

Joe rested next to her. “What are you going to do now?”

Crystal shrugged. “I was thinking of sticking around. Terry wants to get a house, and it seems like they’re nicer on this side of the bridge. Do you know anyone in CCPD who might be looking for a permanent partner?”

“And… the Flash?”

Her smile became faintly mischievous. “I’ve seen him a couple of times,” she said in a familiar, bored tone. “But then, hasn’t everybody?”


	20. Epilogue: Born to Run

A few days later, Barry leaned against the wall outside his favourite karaoke bar, breathing in the cool fall air. He was making the most of his fake-out smoking habit to call a friend.

“Where did you find the clock?” Felicity asked. “Iris’ article didn’t say.”

“Turned out he was renting another room in Keystone,” Barry explained. “Cash only. The owner recognised Hunter’s face on the TV and called it in. They found the clock, the jewels he didn’t sell, and most of the cash.”

“What about you? Caitlin said he saw your face.”

Barry winced. He’d been hoping that news hadn’t made it to Starling. Oliver would not be happy.

“It was only for a second. And he hasn’t said anything. Joe and Crystal are going to figure a way so someone else can testify at the trial. It’s not like I’m the only CSI in Central City.”

Felicity hummed uncertainly. Barry signed and changed the subject. “I asked Caitlin about that book she was reading. _The Count of Monte Cristo_? She told me how it ended.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. At the end, the Count gets justice, not revenge, on all his enemies. But he also makes sure that his friends are happy too. And then he sails off into the sunrise with the _second_ love of his life.”

He could hear her quiet smile in the silence that followed. “That’s nice,” she whispered. “I’ll tell Oliver.”

“Is he there?”

“No. He’s… umm… working late.”

Barry smiled. He could just imagine it. Starling’s angel in green, watching over his city.

“While we’re on the subject of people we know…” Felicity went on, “a friend of mine has a message for your friend in red. He says happy birthday.”

Barry’s smile widened. That was why they were out tonight. They’d all had to work through the anniversary of Barry waking from his coma, but they were making up for it by celebrating tonight, and marking something else they couldn’t tell anyone about. One year to the day since Barry had stood on a rooftop with the Arrow and Oliver had dared him to be a hero. A year since Cisco had given him the suit, Caitlin had pointed him at Mardon, and Wells had told him to run. A year since the Flash had been born.

“Thanks, Felicity. And I have a message too. From the Flash, to the Arrow. The offer stands; anytime, anywhere.”

“I’ll tell him when I see him,” Felicity said. “Now shoo. You’re missing your own party.”

Barry came back into the bar and his friends cheered. A new round of drinks had been ordered, and he settled between Iris and Cisco.

“How are things in Starling?” Caitlin asked.

She looked slightly awkward in her new outfit, an improved version of the thermal suit that Cisco was trying to cut down until it could be worn under her normal clothes. He was still a few attempts away from success though, right now it looked like a slightly unusual cocktail dress and tights. But it meant Caitlin could leave her chair behind for the evening and join them in the bar, even if Barry had overheard a few questions about overactive air conditioning.

“Things are good. Oh, Cisco, Felicity wanted me to tell you that Laurel says hi.”

Cisco’s smile became momentarily incandescent.

Iris laughed. “Barry, when you’re done delivering messages, we have a message for you.” She grabbed her glass and raised it. “Barry Allen, the gentlest, kindest, nicest guy I know, who would come through hell and high water to be there for a friend.”

“To Barry!”

Barry flushed. “Thanks. I thought things were great before… before I went to sleep. But the world I woke up in, that’s so much better.”

“Yeah!” Cisco cheered, thrusting something into his hand, along with a pointed look from Caitlin. One of her special home brews.

He grinned and downed the shot. It kicked like a horse, and he felt a pleasant warmth work his way from his stomach to his head. Probably a good thing, considering what he had planned next.

“The truth is, though, I’m not that nice all the time. I can be… sneaky.” That just got a laugh. “I can!” He protested. “I’ll prove it. I bet Caitlin doesn’t know anything about the surprise I planned.”

Caitlin went stiff in her chair. “What surprise?”

Barry smiled. “Turn around.”

She did, cautiously, to see the man standing behind her. Then it was her turn to light up. She scrambled out of her seat, crossed the short distance and practically jumped into Ronnie’s arms. They held on to each other, exchanging whispers that were lost in the sound of the bar.

Finally, Ronnie put her down and said, loud enough for the others to hear, “I like the new look, Cait.”

Caitlin tugged at the outfit. “It’s a little tight.”

Ronnie grinned. “I’m not complaining.”

“Hey, man,” Cisco exchanged an embrace with Ronnie, “where’s your other half?”

Ronnie frowned. “He said he had plans with Clarissa. I didn’t really want to ask for details.”

“Good idea,” Cisco said.

“Thank you, Barry,” Caitlin said.

Barry shook his head. “This? Oh, this is not your surprise, Caitlin. This is for the harmonies. Did you bring it, Ronnie?”

Ronnie raised the plastic bag he was holding. “Yep. From Ray. He just wants to see a recording.”

“What are you talking about?” Caitlin asked.

“Caitlin,” Cisco said, trying to stay serious. “I made you a promise. And now we’re going to keep it.”

“What?” Caitlin’s eyes went wide. “Oh no. No, no. Really, you don’t have to…”

“Caitlin,” Iris said firmly, “this is happening.” She pulled out her phone. “Ready, boys?”

The stage was clear. The three young men stepped on to it, Barry and Ronnie doing their best to push their hair back and flat. Cisco didn’t bother. Caitlin buried her face in her hands.

In front of the bar, with his friends behind him, Barry struck a pose and lifted the miniature model of a 1948 Ford De Lux triumphantly over his head.

“ _This car could be systematic… hydromatic… automatic_ …” He stepped aside and Ronnie and Cisco joined in. “ _Why it could be Greased Lightning!_ ”

The audience roared as loud as the music. Iris shrieked with joy, struggling to keep her phone aimed. Even Caitlin emerged from the embarrassed cocoon to laugh at the sheer bizarreness of Barry swearing, even in song, as he and the others went from absurd pose to absurd pose, tossing the little car from hand to hand in time with the lyrics. By the end of the second verse, she was clapping along with everyone else. Ronnie was actually pretty light on his feet, Cisco danced with his usual unselfconscious abandon, and Barry knew the moves well enough that he didn’t have to cheat. They ended the song, red-faced and gasping, leaning against each other and making faces like a poster for the most ridiculous boyband in the world while the bar cheered.

They collected smiles and greetings all the way back to their seats, where Iris stopped laughing long enough to give them a drink of water each.

“Promise me,” Caitlin giggled, “that you will never, ever do that again.”

“Are you kidding?” Cisco responded. “That was awesome.”

“What do you say we return the favour?” Iris suggested. “ _All That Jazz_ , maybe?”

“I’ll need some more to drink first,” Caitlin replied.

“On it,” Ronnie said. “What do you guys want?”

They sent him to the bar, and Barry came along to help carry the drinks. Davey served them quickly enough and then went back to telling someone else to check the air-con again. Ronnie gave him a curious look and Barry just shrugged. It wasn’t that bad, and at least the drinks wouldn’t get warm. 

“Here you go.” Ronnie set a large drink in front of his wife. “So do I get to hear you sing?”

Iris’ eyes narrowed. “What about you, Ronnie? Do you sing much?”

He shrugged. “Well, I now know all the words to Credence Clearwater Revival’s _Willy and the Poor Boys_ album. Um… it’s a Firestorm thing.”

Fortunately, Iris was so bemused by the answer that she forgot about her suspicion, much to Barry’s relief. “You can sing with us, then. While you were at the bar, I had an idea for something we could all do. Together.”

The obvious question was interrupted by a strange twanging. Cisco had apparently changed his phone’s alert again. He looked at the screen and then tugged Barry’s sleeve. “Dude!”

Barry leaned over to see the message. As he did so, one of those odd silences fell over the bar. The door had been opened, and outside, in the distance, he could hear sirens.

“I should go check on that,” he said.

Ronnie straightened up. “You need a hand?”

Barry shook his head. “No. You stay there. I’ll be back in a… minute.”

He looked over at Iris. She leaned back in her chair, raised her glass and smiled. “They’re playing your song, Barry Allen.”

He returned her smile. He left his coat where it was; his friends would be waiting for him when he got back. Then he hurried through the door, not even bothering with the cigarette this time.

The streets of Central City stretched out before him, the lightning flashed in his eyes, and Barry Allen ran into the night.

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who came on this ride with me. I hope you all had as much fun as I did. I appreciated everything, the reviews, the kudos and but more that people just turned up to read. 
> 
> When I started working on the story, I had no idea what direction the show was going to take, and by the time I finished I realised they weren't going to match up. But I think that's a good thing. I've no wish to tread on such illustrious toes. Perhaps you can imagine that this was one of Cisco's dreams. Something that could have happened, somewhere out there in the multiverse. And if it was dream, I like to think it was a good one.


End file.
